Synopses & Reviews
Years of neglect in the mother country had allowed America's fledgling democracy to gain power, but by 1760 America had become the biggest and fastest-growing part of the British economy, and Britain required tribute. When the revolution came to New York City, it tore apart a community that was already riven by deep-seated familial, political, religious, and economic antagonisms. Focusing on a number of individuals,
Divided Loyalties describes their response to increasingly drastic actions taken in London by a succession of the king's ministers, which finally forced people to take sides and decide whether they would continue their loyalty to Great Britain or cast their lot with the American insurgents.
Using fascinating detail to draw us into history's narrative, Richard M. Ketchum explains why men with similar life experiences-even members of the same family-chose different sides when the war erupted.
Richard M. Ketchum is the author of the Revolutionary War classics Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill, The Winter Soldiers: The Battles for Trenton and Princeton, and the award-winning New York Times Notable Book Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War. He and his wife live in Vermont.
Between 1760 and 1775, King George III and a succession of second-rate cabinet ministers concocted a series of increasingly harsh measures to keep American colonists more firmly under British control. Instead of accomplishing what was intended, these actions set in motion a chain of events that forced Americans to take sides, climaxing in the war of the Revolution.
In New York, the conflict tore apart a community that was already divided by deep-seated familial, political, religious, and economic rivalries. Now the choice forced upon New Yorkers was one that could mean the loss of everything they possessedeven life itself. At the center of Richard Ketchum's stirring narrative are two families, the Livingstons and the DeLanceys, one patriot, one loyalist, whose hazardous and largely irrevocable decisions reveal how individuals with similar life experiences chose different sides when the war erupted.
From the outset, the Revolution was a civil war, cruelly dividing families and friends. The dense, compact character of 1760s New York Citya maritime community of about 18,000 soulsbrought those divisions into stark relief. As Ketchum shows us, it was, then as now, a city whose lifeblood was commerce and whose consuming interest was money. However, money was to be madeand its interests defendedin different ways. The DeLanceys were Anglican, well-connected, urban merchants, and they threw in their lot with the crown. Their long-time rivals, the Presbyterian Livingstons, were landed Hudson River gentry and patriots. Both felt the pinch of London's new taxes. But beyond pecuniary matters, both had deeply held convictions about good and just government and proper relations with the mother country. The irony was that the allegiance of loyalist and patriot alike was not to the king or to England, but to what they saw as their own countryAmerica. In Divided Loyalties, Ketchum brings to life a generation of men and women whose difficult choices led to the birth of the United States.
“This lively account of the coming of the Revolutionary War travels with ease back and forth between London and the British North American colonies, especially New York. Ketchum provides a continuing analysis of the factions that divided the loyalties of Englishmen on both sides of the oceanfactions arising from differences in religion, property ownership, social class, and personal ambitions. The wrenching experiences of conflicts as he describes them made the war for American independence also the first American civil war. His rich treatment provides an arresting and poignant narrative.”John Morton Blum, professor emeritus of history, Yale University
"An exemplary work of popular history."Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
"Without question Richard M. Ketchum is the finest historian of the American Revolution currently working. His newest bookDivided Loyalties: How the American Revolution Came to New Yorkis a brilliant, landmark study which reminds us that the creation of the United States was considered an act of treason. Blessed with an impeccable instinct for illuminating detail, Ketchum tells the riveting story of John Jay, Robert Livingston, and other brave New Yorkers in pitch-perfect prose. A truly important and engaging work."Douglas Brinkley, Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies and professor of history at the University of New Orleans
“This lively account of the coming of the Revolutionary War travels with ease back and forth between London and the British North American colonies, especially New York. Ketchum provides a continuing analysis of the factions that divided the loyalties of Englishmen on both sides of the oceanfactions arising from differences in religion, property ownership, social class, and personal ambitions. The wrenching experiences of conflicts as he describes them made the war for American independence also the first American civil war. His rich treatment provides an arresting and poignant narrative.”John Morton Blum, professor emeritus of history, Yale University
“In his superb Divided Loyalties, Richard M. Ketchum uses New York Cityalways fractious, always fascinatingto tell the story of the coming of the American Revolution. And because he has a near-magical ability to bring to life the men and women of the generation that lived through it, Ketchum manages to retrieve the urgency of long-ago events with color and suspense, reminding us all the while that our Revolution was not only an epochal event in human history, but a bitter and brutal civil war fought by people very like ourselves.”Richard F. Snow, editor in chief of American Heritage
"First-rate research, first-rate synthesis . . . Ketchum does a splendid job . . . [He] examines in abundant and authoritative detail the reluctant city of New York as the colonies reeled toward revolution."Kirkus Reviews
"In this magnificent new book, Ketchum shows the falsity of traditional accounts . . . [he] puts a human face on the conflict . . . his lively narrative offers readers insights into the tension, fear, patriotism and loyalty that marked the beginnings of the America Revolution."Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"Turning from his readable histories of the battles of Bunker Hill, Trenton, Princeton, and Saratoga, Richard Ketchum in his latest book considers the 15 years that preceded the actual outbreak of hostilities in 1775. The dramatic story of the real American Revolution, that which occurred in the hearts and minds of colonists who were transformed in the 1760"s and early 1770"s from loyal subjects of King George III, has been told many times before, but never as eloquently. In plumbing the depths of the factionalism that developed between the influential DeLancey and Livingston families and of the maneuvering of British politicians, as well as detailing the assumptions and actions of imperial policymakers in London, the author brings to light how an empire was lost and brings to life the individuals who had to decide where their loyalties lay. By drawing on the letters, journals, and diaries of early New York City residents, this engaging account never loses sight of the people who had to choose sides as the forces of resistance and reform gathered momentum and turned into America's first civil war. This poignant narrative, supported by a list of principal characters, a bibliography, source notes, and an index, can be read profitably and enjoyably by all." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Review
"An exemplary work of popular history." -
The Washington Post Book World"Ketchum is a vivid storyteller. He weaves a complex but forceful narrative web from many diaries and memoirs . . . a dynamic story." -The New York Times Book Review
"Magnificent . . . Ketchum's lively narrative offers readers insights into the tension, fear, patriotism and loyalty that marked the beginnings of the American Revolution." -Publishers Weekly, starred review
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Review
"An exemplary work of popular history." -
The Washington Post Book World"Ketchum is a vivid storyteller. He weaves a complex but forceful narrative web from many diaries and memoirs . . . a dynamic story." -The New York Times Book Review
"Magnificent . . . Ketchum's lively narrative offers readers insights into the tension, fear, patriotism and loyalty that marked the beginnings of the American Revolution." -Publishers Weekly, starred review
Synopsis
Years of neglect in the mother country had allowed America's fledgling democracy to gain power, but by 1760 America had become the biggest and fastest-growing part of the British economy, and Britain required tribute. When the revolution came to New York City, it tore apart a community that was already riven by deep-seated familial, political, religious, and economic antagonisms. Focusing on a number of individuals,
Divided Loyalties describes their response to increasingly drastic actions taken in London by a succession of the king's ministers, which finally forced people to take sides and decide whether they would continue their loyalty to Great Britain or cast their lot with the American insurgents.
Using fascinating detail to draw us into history's narrative, Richard M. Ketchum explains why men with similar life experiences-even members of the same family-chose different sides when the war erupted.
About the Author
Richard M. Ketchum is the author of the Revolutionary War classics
Decisive Day, Winter Soldiers, and
Saratoga. He was the co-founder and editor of
Blair & Ketchum's Country Journal. He and his wife live on a sheep farm in Vermont.