My American Revolution - by Robert Sullivan (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>Named a Best Book of the Year by <i>The Wall Street Journal <p/></i>Americans tend to think of the Revolution as a Massachusetts-based event orchestrated by Virginians, but in fact the war took place mostly in the Middle Colonies--in New York and New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania. In <i>My American Revolution</i>, Robert Sullivan delves into this first Middle America, digging for a glorious, heroic past in the urban, suburban, and sometimes even rural landscape of today. <p/>Sullivan's history is personal, anecdotal, experiential. He visits the down-home reenactment of the crossing of the Delaware, which has taken place each year for the past half century, and uncovers the fact behind the myth. He camps in New Jersey backyards, hikes through lost mountains, and wrecks his back--then evacuates illegally from Brooklyn to Manhattan by handmade boat. He recounts a Brooklyn historian's failed attempt to memorialize a colonial Maryland regiment; a tattoo artist's more successful use of a colonial submarine, which resulted in his 2007 arrest by the New York City police and the FBI; and the life of Philip Freneau, the first (and not great) poet of American independence, who died in a swamp in the snow. <p/>Like an almanac, <i>My American Revolution</i> moves through the calendar of American independence with the eternally charming Robert Sullivan as our guide. This is a fiercely individual and often hilarious journey; in the process of making our revolution his, Sullivan shows us how alive our own history is, right under our noses.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><p>"Historically fascinating and deeply personal." --<i>The New Yorker</i> <p/>"A delightful and quirky history lesson." --<i>USA Today</i> <p/>"It's difficult to resist this eclectic, highly personal examination of America's war of independence." --<i>The Boston Globe</i> <p/>"The reader more or less returns to the starting point, but with a brand-new perspective. What a trip!" --<i>The New York Times Book Review</i> <p/>"A nostalgic, witty, and always informative topographic retrospective of the sites pertinent to the American Revolution takes Vogue contributing editor and journalist Sullivan to the action seen by the middle colonies especially--New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey...Sullivan's historic anecdotes form a loose-limbed, irreverent, surprising take on American history." --<i>Publishers Weekly</i> <p/>"Engaging, humorous, and often surprising...Sullivan combines solid historical knowledge, sensitivity to the physical landscape, and a wry sense of the absurdities inherent in mythmaking to provide a thoroughly enjoyable and original perspective." --<i>Booklist</i> <p/>"Historical reenactors refer to what they do as 'living history, ' the idea being that it's easier to learn from a three-dimensional experience than is from a book or lecture, because it establishes a physical connection with the past. It was something like this desire, familiar to most amateur history buffs, that drove Sullivan...to relive some of the iconic deeds of American Revolution, such as crossing the East River to Manhattan in a small boat in homage to George Washington's escape after the disastrous Battle of Brooklyn. Sullivan is himself a New Yorker, and his zeal for local history comes across in the way that he treats each task with enthusiastic respect. For him, hiking through New Jersey along the path of Washington's troops is more than a hike--it's a communion with our shared past that bears an importance beyond mere observation. This is half history and half just good fun...It's inspiring to watch him attempt to capture even the tiniest bit of the audacity of the American founding." --<i>Nick Mancusi, The Daily Beast</i> <p/>"Robert Sullivan has interesting ideas, and sometimes he makes interesting books out of them...Now Sullivan turns his attention to the American Revolution, though no one familiar with his work will be surprised that his approach to it is almost entirely eccentric. <i>My American Revolution</i> is about as far from a conventional account of that conflict as one could get. Instead it is an episodic portrait of the war as it may have been at the time and as it is understood--or misunderstood--by many of us now . . . This book is about...an effort to find the past in the present, to reconcile each to the other. At its best, <i>My American Revolution</i> accomplishes this with grace and humor...[Sullivan] certainly accomplishes one of his main purposes: to make us see not merely the revolution but also ourselves in new light." --<i>Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post</i> <p/>"[An] eccentric, entertaining take on the war...He highlights events he can retrace, including the famous river crossing and Washington's subsequent trek to New Jersey's Watchung Mountains, as well as the Battle of Brooklyn and the general's journey to New York for his inauguration. He's a well- informed guide you appreciate as much for his asides and digressions." --<i>Jeffrey Burke, Businessweek</i> <p/>"<i>My American Revolution</i> is a brilliant rereading of an entire landscape. It offers an ingenious approach to history by suggesting that noticing and retracing with care and wit, finding hints and clues, are ways of re-creating the past in all its complexity. It is, on the one hand, a funny book, filled with mishap and adventure, but it is also deeply and seriously engaged with capturing the spirit of a place. It deserves to become one of the indispensable books about New York." --<i>Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn</i> <p/>"In his meditative, elliptical way, Sullivan does with the Revolutionary era what Tony Horwitz did with the Civil War in his 1998 book, <i>Confederates in the Attic</i>--he tracks down the re-enactors, amateur historians and oddballs (himself included) for whom the drums of war never really stopped beating." --<i>Stephen Heyman, T: The New York Times Style Magazine</i> <p/>"In his uplifting new book, <i>My American Revolution: Crossing the Delaware and I-78</i>, Robert Sullivan...mixes local history and personal examination. His outcome is...ecstatic. Sullivan claims that the real Revolutionary War wasn't fought in and around Boston but in the middle colonies of New York and New Jersey, his lifelong haunts. He scours these areas for the War of Independence that time forgot, 'going out on reconnaissance missions into the landscape that might not seem ancient, camouflaged now as it is by cities and strip malls, by toxic waste sites and high-end commercial properties.' Such historical excursions grant Sullivan a 'more resonant awareness, a deeper realization of the landscape not offered in a sentence, or on a chart, but in [his] bones.'...Sullivan restores to their original brightness figures on the verge of disappearing from history...Rebelling against mainstream accounts of the war, Sullivan realizes that revolutionary energy still thrives in the peripheries...Sullivan's exuberant character sketches are as irresistible as they are informative. He is the history teacher you wanted but never had: funny, unpretentiously curious, able to imagine the past with astonishing vitality--a true poet of living history as well as a consummate subversive, showing us how recoveries of the abandoned past are essential for liberty and justice. The people you never heard of, it turns out, can be the ones you most need to hear." --<i>Eric G. Wilson, The Minneapolis Star Tribune</i> <p/>"As Mr. Sullivan traverses the forests, mountains and rivers in and around New York City, he provides a glimpse into the historical minutia of the Revolution as a history buff, a 21st-century patron, a father, a son. This is a work about digging up lost facts and understanding their purpose in the larger framework of what the American Revolution was and how it is remembered...Writing in a conversational tone, Mr. Sullivan leaves the arguments to the historians, the details of Revolutionary paintings and writings to art and literary scholars, placing his own experiences of crossing the Delaware and Interstate 78 at the heart of this work<i>. My American Revolution</i> is a perfect read for someone looking to learn a few neat details of the American Revolution." --<i>Evi Heilbrunn, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</i> <p/>"[Sullivan is] a fine, and fun, traveling partner and guide. Also, a superb writer and deeply dedicated historian." --<i>Nancy Rommelmann, The Oregonian</i> <p/>"[Sullivan] explains the world amusingly; it's a place where progress is triggered by basic human desires...and carried out by clever people in entertaining historical anecdotes." --<i>Bruce Barcott, The New York Times Book Review</i></p><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Robert Sullivan is the author of <i>Rats</i>, <i>The Meadowlands</i>, <i>A Whale Hunt</i>, and most recently, <i>The Thoreau You Don't Know</i>. His writing has appeared in <i>The New Yorker</i>, <i>The New York Times</i>, <i>New York</i> magazine, <i>A Public Space, </i> and <i>Vogue</i>, where he is a contributing editor. He was born in Manhattan and now lives in Brooklyn, New York
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