by T. H. Breen
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Product Description
The Marketplace of Revolution offers a boldly innovative interpretation of the mobilization of ordinary Americans on the eve of independence. Breen explores how colonists who came from very different ethnic and religious backgrounds managed to overcome difference and create a common cause capable of galvanizing resistance. In a richly interdisciplinary narrative that weaves insights into a changing material culture with analysis of popular political protests, Breen shows how virtual strangers managed to communicate a sense of trust that effectively united men and women long before they had established a nation of their own. The Marketplace of Revolution argues that the colonists' shared experience as consumers in a new imperial economy afforded them the cultural resources that they needed to develop a radical strategy of political protest--the consumer boycott. Never before had a mass political movement organized itself around disruption of the marketplace. As Breen demonstrates, often through anecdotes about obscure Americans, communal rituals of shared sacrifice provided an effective means to educate and energize a dispersed populace. The boycott movement--the signature of American resistance--invited colonists traditionally excluded from formal political processes to voice their opinions about liberty and rights within a revolutionary marketplace, an open, raucous public forum that defined itself around subscription lists passed door-to-door, voluntary associations, street protests, destruction of imported British goods, and incendiary newspaper exchanges. Within these exchanges was born a new form of politics in which ordinary man and women--precisely the people most often overlooked in traditional accounts of revolution--experienced an exhilarating surge of empowerment. Breen recreates an "empire of goods" that transformed everyday life during the mid-eighteenth century. Imported manufactured items flooded into the homes of colonists from New Hampshire to Georgia. The Marketplace of Revolution explains how at a moment of political crisis Americans gave political meaning to the pursuit of happiness and learned how to make goods speak to power.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 A Great Look at the Social/Economic life of Colonial America, 2008-04-28
This book is an excellent look at the social and economic life of Colonial America and how each of these factors played into the Revloutionary War. Some of the most facinating aspects of this book are his discussions of the use of danty European goods, such as fine China and silks, used on the frontier, and how the use of these goods gave the impression of colonial America to visiting Europeans as a nation of vast wealth and frivolous consumers. This aspect of Colonial history gives great insight into not only the deep connections to British manufacturing in the colonies, but futhermore gives excellent insight into the work of creditors, debt, and the true break that came with the American Revolution.
Breen's analysis of North-South divisions that contributed to the difficulties of the boycotts of the Stamp Act and eventual bonds that were created between the two during the boycott of the Intollerable Acts that helped the progression to independence are facinating to say the least. Furthermore, one can not help but smile at Breen's discussion of the boycotts and Thomas Jefferson's dismay of not being able to import is treasures from Europe.
Though much of this was covered in Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Breen condences Wood's work into a much more managable read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 The idea is excellent, the research is very good, but the book is repetitive and drags., 2008-03-29
Don't get me wrong T.H. Breen has created a very important research thesis which breaks down stereotypes of the American revolution, his research flows brilliantly but in fact he says in 370 pages what should have been said in 275.
His points are great but he makes the same ones over and over and over. If you love research books than this is your book! I learned quite a bit from it but couldn't read through it again.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Dense but delightful, even for the non-specialist, 2008-02-26
This book presents a dense and detailed account of consumer activity leading up to the american revolution. At first I was intimidated and worried that it wouldn't hold my interest. But I was wrong. It's so well-written and so interesting that I (almost) can't put it down. Some nights I only read 4 or 5 pages. But I relish each page, and I especially enjoy all the original quotes included from colonial americans.
This book isn't just for historians or people that are already interested in american history. It's for everybody who wonders how our country came to be the way it is. Have you ever pondered our rampant consumerism? What caused it? Where did it come from? Maybe even how to curb it? Read this. This book tells the (true) story of an incredibly successful collective consumer effort that literally changed the world. It's been done before folks...
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
 The roots of the American Revolution, 2007-06-11
The American Revolution was one of the pinnacle events in history. T.H. Breen examines the effect that ordinary citizens had toward influencing middle-class gentility in order to democratize colonial society. THE MARKETPLACE OF REVOLUTION: HOW CONSUMER POLITICS SHAPED AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE extends on Gordon Wood's idea of the common man, i.e., farmers and shopkeepers who were despondent on Monarchical rule, and set out to abandon the so-called "Baubles of Britain." Breen explores events that preceded 1775, and draws an emphasis on material culture and its revolutionary effect on the marketplace as well political influence.
Breen expounds that popular mobilization and trust were pertinent factors that helped to create the movement. One of several events that provoked political protest was the Sugar Act of 1764, which brought the realization to the colonists that they had indulged far too long with British goods, services, and regulations that did not produce fair and equal results. Therefore, as a result of their dissatisfaction, the movement against oppressive parliamentary tactics began. And in general terms, the Sugar Act as well as the Stamp Act eventually led to the Boston Tea Party, one of history textbook's most overwrought narratives, but important link toward consumer and political independence.
Although the issues addressed in THE MARKETPLACE OF REVOLUTION are not new, this is yet another event in American history that may have been neglected. For some unfortunate instances, some events take precedent over others amidst patriotic and national independence sentiment thus creating historical myth. However, this is not a myth but an essential part of the chronology of the American Revolution. From historical accounts by anonymous writers and colonial newspapers, the mention of one of the first occurrences of women participating in political activity, and an the explanation of array of material artifacts that shaped American identity, Breen adds another perspective and understanding of the American Revolution.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Outstanding, fresh and illuminating, 2005-05-03
I found myself approaching this book as an excellent framework, or skeleton, upon which could be hung all of the other histories and biographies of the Revolutionary period. Here we do not deal so much with great historical figures, but rather with the civic discussions that evolved over time among and between everyday people as they transitioned from British patriots into American patriots. This is a compelling explanation of how and why that happened. As primary sources, Breen draws significantly upon the newspapers, letters, advertisements and broadsides that increasingly circulated among what was, at the time, one of the most literate societies on the planet. I found this to be an outstanding piece of work that contributed greatly to my understanding and comprehension of the forces that shaped the birth of this nation.
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