Prelude To Revolution

“A fine study . . . by a prolific scholar who adeptly restores the Salem Gunpowder Raid to its rightful place in the history of the American Revolution.” —New England Quarterly On April 19, 1775, British raids on Lexington Green and Concord Bridge made history, but it was an episode nearly two months earlier in Salem, Massachusetts, that set the stage for the hostilities. Peter Charles Hoffer has discovered records and newspaper accounts of a British gunpowder raid on Salem. Seeking powder and cannon hidden in the town, a regiment of British Regulars were foiled by quick-witted patriots who carried off the ordnance and then openly taunted the Regulars. The prudence of British commanding officer Alexander Leslie and the persistence of the patriot leaders turned a standoff into a bloodless triumph for the colonists. What might have been a violent confrontation turned into a local victory, and the patriots gloated as news spread of “Leslie’s Retreat.” When British troops marched on Lexington and Concord on that pivotal day in April, Hoffer explains, each side had drawn diametrically opposed lessons from the Salem raid. It emboldened the rebels to stand fast and infuriated the British, who vowed never again to back down. After relating these battles in vivid detail, Hoffer provides a teachable problem in historic memory by asking why we celebrate Lexington and Concord but not Salem and why New Englanders recalled the events at Salem but then forgot their significance. “A well-told story that deserves to be read . . . [Hoffer] reveals something of the practice of the historian’s craft, even as he resurrects a dimly-remembered event.” —History

..". an expert work... remarkable for its objectivity, judiciousness, and its sure handling of the available evidence." -- Political Science Quarterly ..". a fine piece of historical writing." -- Soviet Studies "An able and scholarly inquiry into the perplexing abortive Petrograd uprising of June and July 1917... a very interesting view of revolutionary action on the local level." -- Foreign Affairs First published in 1968, this pioneering study of revolutionary events in Petrograd in the summer of 1917 revised the established view of the Bolsheviks as a monolithic party. Rabinowitch documents how the party's pluralistic nature had crucial implications for the outcome of the revolution in October.

"... an expert work... remarkable for its objectivity, judiciousness, and its sure handling of the available evidence." --Political Science Quarterly "... a fine piece of historical writing." --Soviet Studies "An able and scholarly inquiry into the perplexing abortive Petrograd uprising of June and July 1917... a very interesting view of revolutionary action on the local level." --Foreign Affairs First published in 1968, this pioneering study of revolutionary events in Petrograd in the summer of 1917 revised the established view of the Bolsheviks as a monolithic party. Rabinowitch documents how the party's pluralistic nature had crucial implications for the outcome of the revolution in October.

An essential history of the May 1968 upheaval in France--and how it changed the world. Prelude to Revolution is the indispensable study of May 1968. Generations have looked to this book for inspiration. Singer, who died in 2000, was widely considered the most adept interpreter of European politics for American audiences. He shows here how change happens--and why it is needed

Otiginally published in 1976. This investigation focuses on the ideology of the radical press during the French Revolution. Events, individuals, and institutions were important, but they were reported in such a manner as to make them subordinate to ideas. In their descriptions of the people and institutions of the Revolution, radicals drew heavily on the stereotypes provided by their ideology. The author analyzes the radicals of 1789 to 1791 with respect to collective interests and concerns. For these radicals, ideology governed from 1789 through 1791. And, insofar as events had any impact on the radicals, occurrences of 1790 were important because they coincided with radical shifts in opinion. Subsequent and more famous events came too late to have much impact on radical views. The author reveals that Jacobin thought of 1792 and 1793 had definite origins dating from 1789. The similarity between radical thought and the ideology of Robespierre proves that Jacobinism was not a hasty doctrine of the moment but the direct product of positions assumed since 1789.

This Is A Perceptive And Comprehensive Study Of The Plassey Revolution Of 1757. The Author Looks At The Event In All Its Aspect Such As Bengal Under The Nawab, The Activities Of European Companies And The Asian Traders, Nawab Sirajuddaula, Causes Of Conflict Between Him And The East India Company, The Imperatives Of The Revolution, Genesis Of The Conspiracy, The Main Conspirators, The Revolution And Its Aftermath.

Illuminates how the preservation of slavery was a motivating factor for the Revolutionary War The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt. Prior to 1776, anti-slavery sentiments were deepening throughout Britain and in the Caribbean, rebellious Africans were in revolt. For European colonists in America, the major threat to their security was a foreign invasion combined with an insurrection of the enslaved. It was a real and threatening possibility that London would impose abolition throughout the colonies—a possibility the founding fathers feared would bring slave rebellions to their shores. To forestall it, they went to war. The so-called Revolutionary War, Horne writes, was in part a counter-revolution, a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their right to enslave others. The Counter-Revolution of 1776 brings us to a radical new understanding of the traditional heroic creation myth of the United States.