Goodreads Profile Spoiler Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but lost. A powerful British force had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of Philadelphia. Yet, as David Hackett Fischer recounts in this riveting history, George Washington--and many other Americans--refused to let the Revolution die. On Christmas night, as a howling nor'easter struck the Delaware Valley, he led his men across the river and attacked the exhausted Hessian garrison at Trenton, killing or capturing nearly a thousand men. A second battle of Trenton followed within days. The Americans held off a counterattack by Lord Cornwallis's best troops, then were almost trapped by the British force. Under cover of night, Washington's men stole behind the enemy and struck them again, defeating a brigade at Princeton. The British were badly shaken. In twelve weeks of winter fighting, their army suffered severe damage, their hold on New Jersey was broken, and their strategy was ruined. Fischer's richly textured narrative reveals the crucial role of contingency in these events. We see how the campaign unfolded in a sequence of difficult choices by many actors, from generals to civilians, on both sides. While British and German forces remained rigid and hierarchical, Americans evolved an open and flexible system that was fundamental to their success. The startling success of Washington and his compatriots not only saved the faltering American Revolution, but helped to give it new meaning.
Read 5% earlier today (really, 10% bc half the book is bibliographies and what not) and am enjoying it more than I thought I would. Learning a lot that I never knew.
I'm fine with it thus far but I haven't felt the pull to dive back into it every night like I was with the previous few books I read.
It's all good. I plan on finishing it sometime but I already started another book the another night because this just didn't have a pull for me.
Finished. I really enjoyed it. However it didnt really spark any conversation w me. It reads like a text book a little bit, because I liked the subject, it kept me interested. Did a really good job of explaining the entire early part of the Revolution. How improbable it was ect.
This was the part I was concerned about, especially for non history buffs. I won't start until late in the month. I know I'll like it, but I was hoping it'd be a bit more engrossing for the casual readers
I'm really enjoying it. Haven't really done much with the Revolutionary War since APUSH 10 years ago. Glad we chose it.
I'm surprised we so rarely hear about Washington's slave, William Lee. His would be an interesting story to dive deeper into.
Also, kind of cool to see characters from the TV show Turn pop in (Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, specifically).
You should read the book the series was based on: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show...spies?from_new_nav=true&ac=1&from_search=true I started but didnt finish way back when. This makes me want to revisit it. Not sure when I'll get to it
Finished. Not a lot of thoughts--I liked it, and it was interesting. But I would have liked to see him dive a little further into the reasoning and minds of the key players, instead of outlining (with incredible detail) their movements. Not that that's not interesting, but the portions he spent on explaining actions and clash of temperaments, etc. were easily the most captivating to me.
Finished today as well. I enjoyed it, and this was the first American Revolution work I've read in a long time so it was nice to dive back into that era. I gave it 4 stars (3.5) because it was well researched and well presented, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat nor did I feel like it presented some new stance or groundbreaking information.