First Salute

Rating:
Summary: The Revolution as Seen from the Flank
Review: Tuchman's approach to the American Revolution gives American readers a fine taster of how conventional European historians view the Wars of the Amerian Revolution. From her initial vantage point at St. Eustatius, the Dutch Caribbean colony whose port was the first to salute an American vessel (it was running the British blockade), she takes us back to Holland to explore the Netherlands' rebellion of the sixteenth century: the first eruption of the modern, republican, Protestant, free-enterprise state. Thence to England, where similar convulsions brought about revolution and reform in the seventeenth century, and the creation of a worldwide naval empire. Viewed in this light, the American Revolutionaries of the eighteenth century were simply following established tradition. From there, we segue to the story of Admiral Rodney, the British admiral whose absence from fleet command in 1783 was critical - indeed, decisive - in establishing Washington and Rochambleau's advantage at Yorktown. And, once the international context is firmly established, we return to the more familiar perspective of George Washington's continental army. A brilliant exercise in lateral thinking for any American schooled in the conventional orthodoxies of the War, and a ripping tale at that.

Rating:
Summary: The Revolution as Seen from the Flank
Review: Tuchman's approach to the American Revolution gives American readers a fine taster of how conventional European historians view the Wars of the Amerian Revolution. From her initial vantage point at St. Eustatius, the Dutch Caribbean colony whose port was the first to salute an American vessel (it was running the British blockade), she takes us back to Holland to explore the Netherlands' rebellion of the sixteenth century: the first eruption of the modern, republican, Protestant, free-enterprise state. Thence to England, where similar convulsions brought about revolution and reform in the seventeenth century, and the creation of a worldwide naval empire. Viewed in this light, the American Revolutionaries of the eighteenth century were simply following established tradition. From there, we segue to the story of Admiral Rodney, the British admiral whose absence from fleet command in 1783 was critical - indeed, decisive - in establishing Washington and Rochambleau's advantage at Yorktown. And, once the international context is firmly established, we return to the more familiar perspective of George Washington's continental army. A brilliant exercise in lateral thinking for any American schooled in the conventional orthodoxies of the War, and a ripping tale at that.

Rating:
Summary: A broader view of the Revolution
Review: Wonderfully, wonderfully written. If only high school texts had Tuchman's easy-going fluency I would have retained a lot more History.

Much of this book, of course, focuses on the war impact on The Dutch and The French. To that end, it truly presents the Revolution as the first world war. Much of her discussion is of the ineptitude of the British leadership at the time. There are excellent profiles, particularly of Sir Rodney.