American Tempest

Starred review from March 21, 2011
"Ironically, few, if any, Americans todayâeven those who call themselves Tea Party Patriotsâknow the true and entire story of the original Tea Party and the Patriots who staged it." Journalist, historian, and biographer Unger (Lion of Liberty: Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation) turns his attention to the 50 years surrounding the infamous event that resulted in "a nation of coffee drinkers...a declaration of independence, a bloody revolution, and the modern world's first experiment in self-governance." Unger traces the growing anger of colonial businessmen toward British taxation to pay for defense of American soil, from the Molasses Act to the Tea Tax, not the first but fourth attempt to tax the colonies. Unger brings to vivid life familiar historical characters (the incompetent businessman Sam Adams; the wealthy John Hancock, Boston's "merchant king") with lively text and fine reproductions of period maps, paintings, and engravings. Readers will sense foreshadowing of the ultimate irony that "a decade after independence the American government seemed to mirror the very British government that Tea Party Patriots had fought to shatter." Unger's exciting historical account raises questions that are as relevant today as they were in 1773.

February 1, 2011

A solidly researched account of the 1773 Boston Tea Party.

Prolific historian Unger (Lion of Liberty: Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation, 2010, etc.) stresses that "taxation without representation" was an afterthought; Britain's American colonies hated all taxes. A century of benign neglect had left them essentially self-governing and untaxed, and all reacted indignantly when London tried to assert control. Smuggling negated the first taxes, but matters deteriorated after 1760 when Parliament passed measures--the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townsend Act, Tea Act--that produced little revenue but protests, violence and a pugnacious independence movement. Unger concentrates on Massachusetts, the first to erupt. Most readers will agree with his description of British arrogance, naivet� and disastrous tactics, but will squirm as the author turns to the opposition and its leaders, Samuel Adams and James Otis. Few historians deny it, but Unger emphasizes their unrelenting anger, which sprang as much from personal failures (and, in Otis's case, mental illness) as love of liberty. A relentless agitator, Adams cultivated Boston's underclass, provoking rampages of looting, arson and tarring-and-feathering which, in an era without police, went unpunished and convinced wealthy establishment figures such as John Hancock that opposing Adams would be ruinously expensive. Although revered today, the original Tea Party upset many patriots; Washington and Franklin denounced the destruction of private property. As usual, it was Britain's harsh overreaction that united the opposition.

Well-delineated, contrarian history--though it may disappoint readers looking for an inspiring tale of freedom lovers thumbing their noses at despotism.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 1, 2011
The author of assorted narratives and biographies connected to the American Revolution, Unger here embeds John Hancock (a former subject: John Hancock, 2000) in his Bostonian political milieu. Pegged to the towns political actors, the narrative culminates in the outbreak of war and British evacuation of Boston. The famous Boston Tea Party assumes its place as one of many events in the intensification of conflict over Britains tyrannical usurpations, according to one view, or the colonists treasonous resistance, in another. The dynamic in Ungers telling derives from the movement of individuals between political poles, with radicals like Samuel Adams pressuring moderates like Hancock to break with local supporters of British rule, such as Thomas Hutchinson. Recounting meetings, pamphleteering, and mob action, Unger underscores the atmosphere of menace never absent from patriot righteousness. For Tories and the British, the 1773 tea partys conflation of property destruction with tax resistance was the last straw. Considering the incidents resonance for the current Tea Party movement, Ungers history allows timely comparison of the original and its contemporary namesake.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)