Analysis Of The Book The Revolution By Jack Rakove

Revolutionaries, by Jack Rakove published in 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, which is located in New York city, New York, brings a collection of stories of the ‘founding fathers’ together to create the story of the American Revloution. The thesis of the book is arguably that the American Revolution may never have happened without the mishaps of the Boston Tea Party, which in turn created a collection of colonial leaders. Rakove’s book, in the early chapters, focus on Samuel and John Adams, John Dickinson, and George Washington. The later sections talk about the trio of key party leaders in the early Republic: Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton. Throughout, we are introduced to less commonly know people: Henry Laurens, Jack Laurens, Arthur Lee and George Mason The account of the first part of Revolutionaries is one we all learn in elementary school: ‘no taxation without representation’ and the Boston Tea Party. We’re too comf ortable with this period, or at least with how we know it: the characters and the events have the well-worn quality that comes from being handled too much. Benjamin Franklin with his half-glasses sells us plumbing and tax advice. Proud Sam Adams hawks beer. Rakove uses rich descriptions of the Founders’ daily lives to quicken the plaster-cast heroes. While the First Continental Congress (meeting in Philadelphia in the fall of 1774) was debating how to respond to harsh British sanctions against the city of Boston, delegate George