Eric Schlereth, Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Dallas, and the author of the wonderful book An Age of Infidels: The Politics of Religious Controversy in the Early United States, discusses popular protest in Boston in the decade leading up to the American Revolution.
Readings:
Mug battle question: Which Massachusetts town’s tactics of coercion and protest included pummeling a man with a live goose?
Answer: Salem. Congratulations to Daniel Li for winning the mug in our biggest showdown yet!
Further reading: The literature on the American Revolution in general, and Boston in particular, is immense. In preparing for the class I enjoyed reading David Hackett Fischer’s highly entertaining Paul Revere’s Ride. Fischer highlights the many contingent factors and individual decisions made not just by Revere and other “Whigs,” but also by the British officers, in the days leading up to the battles of Lexington and Concord.