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Historian mary beth norton. She is the author of five books and coeditor of several others in your textbooks in a survey of u. S. History and been published in ten additions and sold more than 500,000 copies. Norton is a price finalist and. She is married professor of American History at cornell university. Her new book, 1774, year of revolution, available for purchase following the program. So now, please join me in welcoming mary beth norton. [applause]. Mary is really nice to be here. I want to make sure that the microphone is on. It does not seem to be. Hope there is pretty great. I want to show you the cover of the book because that little bottle on it, is famous here in colonial historian. I dont know if anybody recognizes this but it is in the collection of the massachusetts historical tidy. It claims on the label which is impossible read, that it contains t picked up from bostons harbor. The day after the tea party. So t ....
I did. I spent 15 years working at the liberation of europe in world war ii and when i finished the third volume having gone through north africa, sicily, italy and in europe speaking about what to do next the obvious thing would have been what to do for that campaign thathecampaign that ie mediterranean and western europe. It is hard because in part i would have had to start the war over in pearl harbor even earlier and ive been thinking for a long time about what it is i really wanted to as a historian and a narrative writer and ive always had a fascination since i was a kid with the resolution. It seems to be more important than ever now so thats what ive done. Im one third of the way into what i hope will be another trilogy. This one about the history of the revolution told from both the american side and the british side equally. Host why do you say that its more important now than ever . Guest when we look at the revolutionrevolution, we are tro figure out who we are, who we come ....
Captioning performed by vitac certainly a part of the American Revolution, specifically yeah, the united colonies. So when does the Continental Army begin . Its not necessarily with the start of the revolution, but we are going to pick up their story at the beginning of the war. So a couple classes ago we were talking about the french and indian war and the french and indian war was a world war that fundamentally altered several different nations, but primarily france, removed from the north american continent, britain and the british colonies. Many americans had fought alongside british soldiers and british officers during the war. Anyone recall what were some of the things that transpired when the two groups interacted . I mean, the british, they looked down on the colonies. Okay. So in a lot of ways the british are looking down on the coal nists for a number of reas ....
Here is a little damp and cold, we just drove back en route to from williamstown, massachusetts. So our first snow of the year in, of all places, the top peaks en route to in the berkshires, in the town of wait for it, florida and florida, mass situations. I always thought that was some kind of a joke. But anyway, it gets the first snow. This year and just a little harbinger of things to come and not enough to make the roads impassable, which will happen later on in the year. But anyway, i want to first thank a couple of folks who are here to thank our friends from cspan, who are going to be recording this for future use on television. Thank Rachel Hobson from the library, who was here making sure everything is set up properly and and most importantly, thank chris meyer, who is the sponsor of this series, a member of our board and a longtime member of the wellesley historical society. And also, just so you know, there will be refre ....
Good evening. I am the executive director of the society of the cincinnati. It is my pleasure to introduce our speaker this evening. I want you all to do me a favor. This is his book. Hes going to talk to us about it. The book is the road to concord how four stolen cannon ignited the revolutionary war. He will defend that premise for us a little bit later. I want to tell you what my reaction to this book is because i have had the opportunity to read it already. It is one of three books in the last 20 years i read cover to cover in one sitting. I dont read quickly. The reason i read it cover to cover in one sitting is it is extremely well written. It is graceful prose of an oldfashioned sort. And second, it is wonderfully researched, when i was taught in graduate school to refer to as a revisionist work in history. All good works of history if they are good are revisionist in some way, but he is telling us a new story about the coming of the revolution in massachusetts. A story you migh ....