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Paul Revere's Ride | 
 enlarge | Author: David Hackett Fischer
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $40.00
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Rating:  69 reviews
Sales Rank: 487758
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0195088476
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.3311092
EAN: 9780195088472
ASIN: 0195088476
Publication Date: February 26, 1994
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Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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Product Description
Paul Revere's midnight ride looms as an almost mythical event in American history--yet it has been largely ignored by scholars and left to patriotic writers and debunkers. Now one of the foremost American historians offers the first serious look at the events of the night of April 18, 1775--what led up to it, what really happened, and what followed--uncovering a truth far more remarkable than the myths of tradition.
In Paul Revere's Ride, David Hackett Fischer fashions an exciting narrative that offers deep insight into the outbreak of revolution and the emergence of the American republic. Beginning in the years before the eruption of war, Fischer illuminates the figure of Paul Revere, a man far more complex than the simple artisan and messenger of tradition. Revere ranged widely through the complex world of Boston's revolutionary movement--from organizing local mechanics to mingling with the likes of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. When the fateful night arrived, more than sixty men and women joined him on his task of alarm--an operation Revere himself helped to organize and set in motion. Fischer recreates Revere's capture that night, showing how it had an important impact on the events that followed. He had an uncanny gift for being at the center of events, and the author follows him to Lexington Green--setting the stage for a fresh interpretation of the battle that began the war. Drawing on intensive new research, Fischer reveals a clash very different from both patriotic and iconoclastic myths. The local militia were elaborately organized and intelligently led, in a manner that had deep roots in New England. On the morning of April 19, they fought in fixed positions and close formation, twice breaking the British regulars. In the afternoon, the American officers switched tactics, forging a ring of fire around the retreating enemy which they maintained for several hours--an extraordinary feat of combat leadership. In the days that followed, Paul Revere led a new battle-- for public opinion--which proved even more decisive than the fighting itself.
When the alarm-riders of April 18 took to the streets, they did not cry, "the British are coming," for most of them still believed they were British. Within a day, many began to think differently. For George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, the news of Lexington was their revolutionary Rubicon. Paul Revere's Ride returns Paul Revere to center stage in these critical events, capturing both the drama and the underlying developments in a triumphant return to narrative history at its finest.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 64 more reviews...
 America needs to understand it's beginings July 10, 2008
Excellent book Extremely well documented. Dispells some common misconceptions about the American Revolutionary War and provides great insight into many individuals who were instramental in the efforts of American Liberty.
A couple misconceptions that are covered:
The image Americans have of Paul Revere being a lone rider yelling "the British are coming!" is a fanciful one. First, there were many players and riders on the night of April 18th and the day of April 19th, 1775, not just Paul Revere. Second, and one of the most important things for Americans today to realize is that the Colonialists were British citizens and saw themselves that way. They had no intentions of starting a revoultion for independence prior to Lexington-Concord and they most certainly did not hear "the British are coming". They heard "the regulars are coming". These redcoats were their own troops, and the colonialists saw them exactly that way.
Most people I know will give you taxation as the primiary catalyst for the American Revoultionary War. This is also a false idea. The primary reason (and the events surrounding April 19th, 1775 prove this out) was the British government's attempt to reduce the colonials' ability to resist them militarily. The British government and armed forces were seizing cannon, gunpowder and shot.
Champions of the 2nd Amendment will exclaim that the Revolutionary War was started becuase of gun control, and that is partly true. The "regulars" did not in general care about the average colonialists arms, at least to begin with. There were arms in just about every household in New England, and they did not think it prudent to attempt house to house search and seizure. They realized it would be much easier to limit the supply of munitions (blackpowder especially), the bulk of which were generally stored at "powderhouses" in various communities. In this manner the British government hoped to limit the ability of the colonialist whigs to mount a sustained resistance.
The successful and unsuccessful attempts to seize powder did not have the affect the goverment hoped. Read the book and find out what happened. It's your history and heritage America.
I want to note that I found this book through participating in a program called The Appleseed Project, an offshoot of the Revolutionary War Veterans Association. I think the skills gained therein, and the historical narratives provided are really needed in America today. Thanks for reading.
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"One if By Land....." December 12, 2007
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the American Revolution, and the movement leading up to it; and desires to find authors who bring it back to life for us, who make us feel we actually know the people who have given so much of themselves for the rest of us, allowing us to make it to this century where we now live in comfort and liberty due to the extraordinary motivation that paved the way for us. Accurate historical account, but aided by vivid narrative rather than structured text, it's a read that's hard to put down. I want to relive the moments, feel the rush of what must have driven them, sense the night air, the position of the moon, and the countryside moving by in the same way they must have. History written without those basic human emotions is not the same as that which is, so that is the type of book I look for and not all authors are created equal.
The amazing aforesight of advance planning and fruitation of those plans coming from those without the aid of cell phones or other modern methods of communication seems all but impossible when you consider the personal danger, the distances between, the knowledge that there was no room for error in carrying out those plans in the dead of night once they were launched, the meticulous coordination and teamwork of the Pre-revolutionists; the ability used to carry it out with but rudimentary tools, even melting down materials for their bullets in their back rooms, in the knowledge that more would surely be needed and how was that to happen.
The book gives an accounting of the Old North Church signals, the climbing of the tower on a stairway far less sturdy than what current OSHA regulations would permit, I daresay, in the dark for fear of discovery, carrying lanterns to be lit with candles after arriving at the window. It describes the wild ride to Lexington spreading the warning, the capture by the British, all written in vivid detail. It gives insight into Paul Revere's life and his importance in the pre-revolution planning and intelligence system, not simply his "midnight ride". It describes the events leading up to it, the cat and mouse games played with the British that I had all but forgotten. What passion must have moved within them to suffer such discomfort in carrying out immense acts of courage.
I hope this review will aid others in their search for wonderful books regarding the Revolution, and I myself made use of such reviews before I made the selection, so many thanks to those who took the time to do it.
Both Detailed and Gripping December 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I happened to grow up on the road that Paul Revere road down -- well, one of them. My family spent a few years on Virginia Rd. in Lincoln, Mass. We lived right across the street from Hartwell Farms, where the Minutemen apparently stopped on their ride. Every year on April 19 we would get out of bed (this was the early 1960's) and watch the re-enactment of Paul Revere and The Minutemen. Down the road, at Rte. 2A there's a stone marker in a place that used to be an ice cream stand (might still be) where Revere was captured. When I picked up this book, I thought: what else is there to learn? Turns out...quite a bit. This is detailed, rich history. If you read "1776" and enjoy books along those lines, you'll relish in both the broader context of the build-up to the war and you'll savor the details of Revere, the pursuit and battles to Concord and the bloody, ugly return. This is a wonderful book. Period.
 The Mercury of the American Revolution September 20, 2007
Seldom does an academic book reach across the aisle and become a classic of popular history as well. Mr. Fischer's "Paul Revere's Ride" does just that. "Ride" captures the reader with incredible little known anecdotes as well as flawless research and a smooth narrative flow. The theme of Fischer's book was that Revere's ride far from being a singular achievement was in reality a collective effort of a multitude of revolulutionaries throughout the colony. Simply put, in reading history, Americans must sometimes put the proverbial `rugged individualist' on the shelf and look at history as how it developed, rather then how we would like to see it happen. What attracted me to this book in the first place was Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" in which Mr. Fischer's book is cited. Revere was a man who knew everyone in Boston and moved in many different circles. We often forget that great changes are not accomplished by the sole recluse theorist writing in his study, but rather as Mr. Fischer points out by "collective responsibilities of the group dynamic." In this, Revere and his fellow Whigs rejected the sort of individualist credo that would later find it's prophet in Thomas Jefferson.
Another fascinating portrait is General Thomas Gage, the largely ineffectual and philosophical libertarian leader of the British in Boston. One is tempted to think if Gage had a little more command and control structure that he could have countered the quickness of Revere and the minutemen especially in the late night of April 18, 1775 and the early morning hours of the next day. Throughout the book, the reader may wonder why Gage chose not to have Revere and co. arrested, but Gage felt he was bound to the Constitution just as any British overseer would be. Of course, Thomas Gage did not know the ending to this story and neither did any of the Colonists. In this General Gage and his governance was just one in a long line of ineffectual imperial military forces brought to their knees by a united, close knit community. Fischer concludes his book with a variety of appendices and fascinating data about how the burgeoning revolutionaries really worked. Of note is the author's historiography of the "Ride" taking it from the Whig's attempt to suppress it for being against the myth of "national innocence" to the 1960's revisionists attempt to destroy the "Ride" as one of the most well known symbols of the dead white male. Perhaps, the last word should belong to that shining beacon of the American political landscape in the 1920's: Warren G. Harding who said: "I love the story of Paul Revere, whether he rode or not."
Everyone in America Should Read This Book! June 14, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I wish I could give it 10 'stars'! It is an entertaining read. It is unusual among history books in that the maps are actually useful, easy to understand and related to the text. The author writes the story so well, it almost reads like an entertaining novel. I definitely have a much greater appreciation of the events that sparked the American Revolution. I strongly urge everyone in America to read this book. It will change everything you never learned of American History in school.
Oh, by the way, I liked the book!
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