BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS
Valiant Ambition (The American Revolution Series) by Nathaniel Philbrick
An eye opening look at the rocky road United States stumbled through on its way to independence. I found this story extraordinary and enlightening, and far more revealing than all of my previous studies had taught me.
The provocative history was not a slam dunk described in history books. This is truly recommended reading.
Excerpts:
Like many American mariners and merchants, Arnold’s early revolutionary beliefs had been nurtured in the smuggling trade. For men like John Hancock in Boston and Arnold in New Haven, finding a way around the stifling economic restrictions imposed by the British government had been not only a financial necessity but an expression of patriotism, a finger in the eye of the British regime. Now that the Continental Congress in Philadelphia had proven to be, if anything, even more dysfunctional and unjust than the ministry in London, Arnold saw nothing disloyal in doing what Americans had always done: profit as best they could from whatever
The city was a shambles. The British had used the State House as a prison, and the floors of its once immaculate rooms were heaped with human waste. The newly returned delegates of the Continental Congress had to meet temporarily in nearby College Hall until the filth could be removed. Other public buildings and “genteel houses” had been used for stables by the British, who cut holes in the floors so that the dung could be shoveled into the cellars. According to the New Hampshire delegate Josiah Bartlett, “The country northward of the city for several miles is one common waste, the houses burnt, the fruit trees and others cut down and carried off, fences carried away, gardens, and orchards destroyed.” Over the course of the next few weeks, thousands of citizens who had spent the winter outside Philadelphia flooded back into the ravaged city. Not unexpectedly, they had little sympathy for anyone who had fraternized with the enemy.
The United States had been created through an act of disloyalty. No matter how eloquently the Declaration of Independence had attempted to justify the American rebellion, a residual guilt hovered over the circumstances of the country’s founding.
By threatening to destroy the newly created republic through, ironically, his own betrayal, Arnold gave this nation of traitors the greatest of gifts: a myth of creation. The American people had come to revere George Washington, but a hero alone was not sufficient to bring them together. Now they had the despised villain Benedict Arnold.
As Arnold had demonstrated, the real enemy was not Great Britain, but those Americans who sought to undercut their fellow citizens’ commitment to one another. Whether it was Joseph Reed’s willingness to promote his state’s interests at the expense of what was best for the country as a whole or Arnold’s decision to sell his loyalty to the highest bidder, the greatest danger to America’s future came from self-serving opportunism masquerading as patriotism.
No comments:
Post a Comment