1776 Year Of Illusions

"A popular history of this quality about the early months of the American Revolution is always welcome; in this season of hysterical national mythopoesis it is doubly refreshing. Despite a disarmingly casual style, Fleming's scholarly emphasis on detail makes it possible to see the Revolution not as a struggle for fundamental human rights but as an avalanche of microscopic actions, mistakes, and circumstances whose confluence was governed by the illusions, ignorance, inexperience, or ineptitude of everyone involved. Surprisingly, the story gains in stature for having been so definitively demythologized." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)