Thirteen clocks : how race united the colonies and made the Declaration of Independence

Thirteen clocks : how race united the colonies and made the Declaration of Independence

How race united the colonies and made the Declaration of Independence

Williamsburg, VA : Chapel Hill : Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture ; University of North Carolina Press, 2021.

xxi, 232 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.

973.31 P237 2021

(OCoLC)1196243675

Contents: Newspapers on the eve of the revolutionary war -- The long odds against American unity in the 1770s -- The "shot heard round the world" revisited -- "Britain has found means to unite us" -- A rolling snowball -- Merciless savages, domestic insurrectionists, and foreign mercenaries -- Founding stories.
Tracing the circulation of information in the colonial news systems that linked patriot leaders and average colonists, Parkinson reveals how the system's participants constructed a compelling drama featuring virtuous men who suddenly found themselves threatened by ruthless Indians and defiant slaves acting on behalf of the king. Parkinson argues that patriot leaders used racial prejudices to persuade Americans to declare independence. Between the revolutionary war's start at Lexington and the Declaration, they broadcast any news they could find about Native Americans, enslaved Blacks, and Hessian mercenaries working with their British enemies. American independence thus owed less to the love of liberty than to the exploitation of colonial fears about race. Thirteen Clocks offers an accessible history of the Revolution that uncovers the uncomfortable origins of the republic even as it speaks to our own moment--Back cover.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-222) and index.
L2021M173

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