Robert A. Gross's The Minutemen And Their World

Why do people associate wealth with good leadership abilities? That is the main question that was lingering in my mind while I was read “The Minutemen and their World,” book by Robert Gross. The book is about a town called Concord (which is in Massachusetts). The books tells about how the city of Concord was before the Revolutionary war, during the Revolutionary war and after the revolutionary war. In this book, it shows how leaders come about and how they impact their society around them. After reading this book, it made me think about how wealthy people are always seen as leaders? Becoming wealthy in American can be a daunting task to complete. It requires a variety of different skills to make a profitable business. But does creating a lucrative business for personal gain, merits you to being a leader over the masses of common people? We currently have this exact situation playing out before our eyes with GOP candidate Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn’t have any previous experience in political affairs, but he is currently leading

When it comes to the topic of the American Revolution most have been educated about the significant battles of the war, and the overall outcome. However, submerged beneath the details of war are the individual stories of those living in the colonies. In Rae Raphael’s book, A People’s History of the American Revolution, the personal stories and experiences of the “common folk” are brought back to the surface for the first time. Recounting these personal stories utilizing primary literature provides a necessary accuracy in portraying this time period. The experiences of farmers, laborers, women, Native Americans, and slaves, among others are used to highlight the effects of the revolution caused by the historically overlooked people inhabiting the colonies.

The book The Minutemen and Their World was written by Robert A. Gross, and took place during the late 1700’s in the small town Concord, Massachusetts and the people who inhabited it. He wrote about Concord’s government and how it changed over the years and the struggles the town’s people go through. Robert Gross wrote this book like a story but it is clear how much research went in to the book itself just by looking in the Notes section in the back of the book. This book demonstrates how the town of Concord coped with the Revolutionary War, he concentrated on the lives of the townspeople and the farmers, and Concord’s main political problems. In the book, Robert Gross dusts over some of the main problems the town of Concord had. They had issues staying united. The farmers and city slickers didn’t agree on political topics, such

Robert Gross’ The Minutemen and Their World examines a town 's role in the events of the colonial revolution. Specifically that of Concord, Massachusetts in the years before, during and after the Revolution. Gross provides details about the inner workings of town politics, religion, and society for the period. He notes how town’s people’s rivalries and religious fissures occupied the townspeople through the prerevolutionary period. Gross details how Concord was largely absent from the pre-Revolutionary activities of other communities, and then the unification process that occurred as conflict grew closer. By analyzing specific events in the town’s history Goss is able to draw conclusions about why certain events took place leading up to

Robert A. Gross the author of “The Minutemen and their World” gives a very detailed nonfictional narrative of the small town of Concord, Massauchessets. Gross describes the American Revelotion through the eyes of this community which paints a more vivid picture of the events taking place up to the war which seperated the Unite States for Great Britian through a perspective that I have never seen before.

One thing in the story that shocked me is how different our perception of the Revolutionary War is from the reality. An example of this was how ill trained the American army was at the beginning of the war. The army was undisciplined, disobedient, and motivated only by their paychecks. Many perceive the soldiers as valiant, zealous men, but it wasn’t until much later in the war that the soldiers rose to the occasion and became the warriors that we remember today.

In the book “Shays’ Rebellion: Authority and Distress in Post-revolutionary America”, Sean Condon shows us his outlook on how he saw post-revolutionary America to be within the late 1770’s and 1780’s. This book was released in 2015 by John Hopkins University Press, and was also made in a continuing book series by Peter Charles Hoffer and Willamjames Hull Hofer called Witness to History. The story takes us "Throughout the late summer and fall of 1786, farmers in central and western Massachusetts organized themselves into armed groups to protest against established authority and aggressive creditors. Calling themselves "regulators" or the "voice of the people.”” [1] Condon succeeds by prosing an appealing idea in an upfront style that shapes

Joseph J. Ellis, the author of “The Founding Brothers,” identifies and give a better vision of what is happening in the American Revolution. Ellis states, “On the inevitability side, it is true there was voices back then urging prospective patriots to regard American Independence as an early manifest destiny” (3). The book introduces the revolutionaries: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin. Ellis focuses on the characteristics, actions, events, and the ideologies differences that affect the American Revolution.

Today we look back at the American Revolution and picture a united people fighting for inalienable rights, but to grasp the impact that Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” had upon his contemporaries we must understand the situation in the American colonies in 1776. When Paine wrote his pamphlet, the colonist and The Parliament in London, were almost 10 years into a debate over the rights of limited self-government by the colonies. In the months preceding the publication of Paine’s pamphlet the situation had steadily worsened until the April 19th, 1775 armed confrontation between Massachusetts colonists and British Army soldiers. By the end of that day, blood had been shed by both sides, and armed colonists placed the British garrison in Boston under siege. Despite this violence, most colonists viewed the events as a part of a struggle between Englishmen that would be resolved with the continued allegiance of the colonies to the Crown, but with more favorable treatment from London. It was with this popular mindset throughout the colonies, that Paine would deliver his “Common Sense” pamphlet arguing for complete independence from England. Paine understood that to make his argument resonate he needed to appeal to the public in a manner that had yet to be done.

England made any town meeting, except authorized by the governor illegal, and housed British soldiers in select public buildings. In Massachusetts the British military governor, General Gage, ordered his 3,500 British soldiers in Boston to seize armories and storehouses in Charlestown and Cambridge. After the seizure, 20,000 colonial militiamen mobilized to protect other military supply depots and in the town of Concord the famous defensive force, the Minutemen, were organized.2 With these acts Parliament declared that Massachusetts was in open rebellion. British Secretary of State, Lord Dartmouth, quickly ordered Gage to send his soldiers on a search and destroy mission to capture colonial leaders, and military supplies in Concord. “At the same time Gage would attempt to find, capture, or kill John Hancock and Samuel Adams.”3 The stage was set for the first major engagements of the American Revolution.

In the 1770s, several different types of government resistance occurred, one of the most well-known being the Boston Tea Party, but this is not the only example of resistance that occurred in Massachusetts during this time. After British Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government Act, which handed the judicial system over to the Royal Government, thousands of men, called “Liberty Men”, organized protests and resistance in response to it. These “Liberty Men” forcibly shut down several

The author reminds the readers of the bravery that the men had to fight against the British, “ Spirit, that made those heroes dare” (13). Therefore conveying to the readers that without the bravery of the men, America wouldn’t be independent. Another message that the author is trying to persuade the readers to appreciate is what the men gave up. Many men had to leave children behind:,”To die, and leave their children free “( 14). The men had fought for the rest of America to be free from British control even if the sacrifices would be the lives of fathers and other men. The readers should appreciate what the men fought for in the Battle of Concord because the men battled , not for fame , but for a better wellness of

It is easy to interpret the American Revolution simply as a struggle for freedom. The magnanimous phrases of the Declaration of Independence have embedded in our hearts and minds glorious images of the Founding Fathers fighting for the natural rights of man. The American Revolution, however, also had a darker side to it, the side of self-interest and profit. The signers of the Declaration represented various classes – the working class, the wealthy land owners and merchants, the intellectuals, and the social elite. Each of these strata had its own set of expectations and fears, which lent a new dimension to the cause of the Revolution. The pressure of these internal, and often overlapping groups, combined with the oppressive external

Known as the home of North Bridge and “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” Minute Man National Historical Park is more than the site of the the events of April 19, 1775. The park contains over 1000 acres of fields, forests, meadows and a landscape which evokes the 18th century the colonists lived in on the morning of ‘75. In addition to the natural world are many of the homes of the period which dot the landscape and have beared witness to the events leading up to the American Revolution.

The novel opens in the troubled year of 1775, with a comparison of England and pre-Revolutionary France. It conveys the sense of doom and chaos. Both countries go