RW250 Roundtable
Book Group
We’ve started a group to discuss books relating to the Revolutionary War. Our first selection was Gordon S. Wood’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Radicalism of the American Revolution, published in 1991 and still considered a classic. Other selections have included:
Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick
1774: The Long Year of Revolution by Mary Beth Norton
Revolutionary Roads: Searching for the War That Made America Independent...and All the Places It Could Have Gone Terribly Wrong by Bob Thompson
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson
Our January 2025 selection is The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution by Benjamin L. Carp.
The discussion will take place on Sunday, January 12 at 4 p.m. on Zoom.
To register click here.
The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS) at Iona University is once again joining RW250 as a cosponsor. Dr. Michael Crowder, former ITPS public historian and currently Assistant Professor at Texas State University, will moderate the discussion.
Benjamin L. Carp’s book explores the mysterious origins of the Great Fire of 1776 and the political forces that drove a rebellious American army to burn down cities on their own soil rather than succumb to British capture. Uncover the lesser-known truths about the American pursuit of happiness.
“The Great New York Fire of 1776 makes us rethink many of our assumptions about the American Revolution and New York City’s role in it. Carp presents the reader with a violent, confused account of the Revolutionary War. Instead of virtuous revolutionary leaders, we find rebels who ‘skulked and deceived, burned and massacred, unleashed campaigns of terror, and denigrated people as less worthy of citizenship,’ among other sins. It is not a story that lends itself to nationalistic pride or heroic memorialization. It is, however, one that includes many more voices from a much more varied and diverse set of people than most influential histories of the Revolution present, and it is one that has a distinctive resonance with the era of confusion and political violence in which many Americans now find ourselves.”
— The Gotham Center for New York City History
Get your copy from a local library or bookseller and plan to join us on January 12.
Below is a recording from our YouTube channel of the book group discussion on Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick, moderated by Dr. Michael Crowder. The discussion took place on January 30, 2022.