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Summary
Summary
America's beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of the year of our nation's birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a war against her rebellious colonial subjects and that placed America's survival in the hands of George Washington.
In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence--when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.
Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.
Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough's 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.
Author Notes
David McCullough was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 7, 1933. He received a bachelor's degree in English literature from Yale University in 1955. After graduation, he moved to New York City and worked as a trainee at Sports Illustrated. He later worked as a writer and editor for the United States Information Agency, in Washington, D.C., including a position at American Heritage.
His first book, The Johnstown Flood, was published in 1968. His other books include 1776, Brave Companions, The Great Bridge, and The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. He received the Pulitzer Prize twice for Truman and John Adams and the National Book Award twice for The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal and Mornings on Horseback. He also won two Francis Parkman Prizes, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and New York Public Library's Literary Lion Award. Two of his books, Truman and John Adams, have been adapted into a television movie and mini-series, respectively, by HBO. In December 2006, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He also made the New York Times Best Seller List in 2015 with his book The Wright Brothers, and in 2017 with The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestselling historian and two-time Pulitzer winner McCullough follows up John Adams by staying with America's founding, focusing on a year rather than an individual: a momentous 12 months in the fight for independence. How did a group of ragtag farmers defeat the world's greatest empire? As McCullough vividly shows, they did it with a great deal of suffering, determination, ingenuity-and, the author notes, luck. Although brief by McCullough's standards, this is a narrative tour de force, exhibiting all the hallmarks the author is known for: fascinating subject matter, expert research and detailed, graceful prose. Throughout, McCullough deftly captures both sides of the conflict. The British commander, Lord General Howe, perhaps not fully accepting that the rebellion could succeed, underestimated the Americans' ingenuity. In turn, the outclassed Americans used the cover of night, surprise and an abiding hunger for victory to astonishing effect. Henry Knox, for example, trekked 300 miles each way over harsh winter terrain to bring 120,000 pounds of artillery from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, enabling the Americans, in a stealthy nighttime advance, to seize Dorchester Heights, thus winning the whole city. Luck, McCullough writes, also played into the American cause-a vicious winter storm, for example, stalled a British counterattack at Boston, and twice Washington staged improbable, daring escapes when the war could have been lost. Similarly, McCullough says, the cruel northeaster in which Washington's troops famously crossed the Delaware was both "a blessing and a curse." McCullough keenly renders the harshness of the elements, the rampant disease and the constant supply shortfalls, from gunpowder to food, that affected morale on both sides-and it certainly didn't help the British that it took six weeks to relay news to and from London. Simply put, this is history writing at its best from one of its top practitioners. Agent, Morton Janklow. 1,250,000 first printing; BOMC and History Book Club main selections; Literary Guild and QPB featured alternates; 18-city author tour. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
As the year 1776 began, hostilities between American forces and British regulars, which had begun the preceding April, continued. Yet a full-fledged war for independence was not inevitable. In Parliament, such conciliators as Edmund Burke and Charles Fox attacked government policy as needlessly provocative. In America, many members of the Continental Congress also sought compromise. But the rush of events, especially the ongoing bloodletting, soon drowned out calls for moderation. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian McCullough has provided a stirring account of the year that began with the humiliating British abandonment of Boston and ended with Washington's small but symbolically important triumph at Trenton. In between, McCullough recounts the American disaster at Brooklyn and the demoralizing retreat across New Jersey. He is a gifted writer who enriches his story with ample use of the diaries and correspondence of ordinary soldiers on both sides. Yet it is his portrayals of the two principal antagonists in this struggle that makes this account both engrossing and poignant. George Washington, as expected, is seen here as iron-willed and ambitious, but McCullough also shows him as prone to self-doubt and occasionally in despair over the string of setbacks. George III, contrary to American prejudice and propaganda, is honorable, reasonably intelligent, and sincerely outraged at the ingratitude of some of his American subjects. This is a first-rate historical account, which should appeal to both scholars and general readers. --Jay Freeman Copyright 2005 Booklist
Choice Review
In 1776, the fate of the American Revolution lay in the hands of George Washington and his army. In this superbly written account of their trials and triumphs, McCullough captures the spirit of the times. Equally important are the portraits he limns of the key participants. His focus is on Washington, the "indispensable man," but Henry Knox, Nathanael Greene, Charles Lee, King George III, Henry Clinton, and the Howe brothers are all captured on his canvas and deftly placed in context. From prodigious research and with keen insight, McCullough quotes the telling phrases that bring to life the "sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear" that plagued the army but were overcome by the "phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country" of its members. Scholar and lay reader alike will enjoy and gain insights from reading McCullough's latest tour de force. Together with Thomas Fleming's 1776: Year of Illusions (CH, Jan'76), which surveys a broader canvas, this work provides the most sophisticated portrait of a single year in historical literature. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All public and academic levels and libraries. J. C. Bradford Texas A&M University
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-McCullough concentrates on George Washington's role in the creation of the Continental Army, starting with his appointment in 1775 to lead the rather amorphous army of the united colonies and continuing through his successes with that army at Trenton and Princeton as 1776 turned into 1777. He introduces readers to the 1776 that Washington experienced: one of continual struggle both to create a working army and to defeat the British. The victories that he met outside Boston were soon followed by defeat and near ruin around New York and gave rise to the realization that 1776 might easily have become the worst year in the history of America. McCullough not only provides readers with some of his best work yet, but also presents an important look at one of the most crucial moments in the history of the United States. Black-and-white and color photos are included.-Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A master storyteller's character-driven account of a storied year in the American Revolution. Against world systems, economic determinist and other external-cause schools of historical thought, McCullough (John Adams, 2001, etc.) has an old-fashioned fondness for the great- (and not-so-great-) man tradition, which may not have much explanatory power but almost always yields better-written books. McCullough opens with a courteous nod to the customary villain in the story of American independence, George III, who turns out to be a pleasant and artistically inclined fellow who relied on poor advice; his Westmoreland, for instance, was a British general named Grant who boasted that with 5,000 soldiers he "could march from one end of the American continent to the other." Other British officers agitated for peace, even as George wondered why Americans would not understand that to be a British subject was to be free by definition. Against these men stood arrayed a rebel army that was, at the least, unimpressive; McCullough observes that New Englanders, for instance, considered washing clothes to be women's work and so wore filthy clothes until they rotted, with the result that Burgoyne and company had a point in thinking the Continentals a bunch of ragamuffins. The Americans' military fortunes were none too good for much of 1776, the year of the Declaration; at the slowly unfolding battle for control over New York, George Washington was moved to despair at the sight of sometimes drunk soldiers running from the enemy and of their officers "who, instead of attending to their duty, had stood gazing like bumpkins" at the spectacle. For a man such as Washington, to be a laughingstock was the supreme insult, but the British were driven by other motives than to irritate the general--not least of them reluctance to give up a rich, fertile and beautiful land that, McCullough notes, was providing the world's highest standard of living in 1776. Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose "outcome seemed little short of a miracle." A sterling account. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
What a year it was, featuring the creation of a new nation, which barely survived it. George Washington, on whom the book concentrates, went from success to several blunders and back to success. The year began with the siege of Boston, where the British were bottled up. Then one of Washington's closest associates, Henry Know, came up with the scheme of trundling the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga in New York State to Boston, a grueling journey and an astonishing triumph. In a brilliant night maneuver, the Yankees slipped onto Dorchester Heights with the cannons, and at dawn, the British in Boston realized that they were under the gun. A truce was arranged, and the British then evacuated. Though Washington is central in this unusually short work, McCullough touches upon many other figures and events. As a narrator, the author is surprisingly good; his grandfatherly, low-key voice is crisp and effective as he moves unhurriedly across the printed page. Appropriate for all libraries with U.S. history collections.--Don Wismer, Cary Memorial Lib., Wayne, ME (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
| Part I The Siege |
| Chapter 1 Sovereign Duty |
| Chapter 2 Rabble in Arms |
| Chapter 3 Dorchester Heights |
| Part II Fateful Summer |
| Chapter 4 The Lines Are Drawn |
| Chapter 5 Field of Battle |
| Part III The Long Retreat |
| Chapter 6 Fortune Frowns |
| Chapter 7 Darkest Hour |
| Acknowledgments |
| Source Notes |
| Bibliography |
| Index |