Overview

Paul Revere's midnight ride looms as an almost mythical event in American history--yet it has been largely ignored by scholars and left to patriotic writers and debunkers. Now one of the foremost American historians offers the first serious look at the events of the night of April 18, 1775--what led up to it, what really happened, and what followed--uncovering a truth far more remarkable than the myths of tradition. In Paul Revere's Ride, David Hackett Fischer fashions an exciting narrative that offers deep insight into the outbreak of revolution and the emergence of the American republic. Beginning in the years before the eruption of war, Fischer illuminates the figure of Paul Revere, a man far more complex than the simple artisan and messenger of tradition. Revere ranged widely through the complex world of Boston's revolutionary movement--from organizing local mechanics to mingling with the likes of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. When the fateful night arrived, more than sixty men and women joined him on his task of alarm--an operation Revere himself helped to organize and set in motion. Fischer recreates Revere's capture that night, showing how it had an important impact on the events that followed. He had an uncanny gift for being at the centre of events, and the author follows him to Lexington Green--setting the stage for a fresh interpretation of the battle that began the war. Drawing on intensive new research, Fischer reveals a clash very different from both patriotic and iconoclastic myths. The local militia were elaborately organized and intelligently led, in a manner that had deep roots in New England. On the morning of April 19, they fought in fixed positions and close formation, twice breaking the British regulars. In the afternoon, the American officers switched tactics, forging a ring of fire around the retreating enemy which they maintained for several hours--an extraordinary feat of combat leadership. In the days that followed, Paul Revere led a new battle-- for public opinion--which proved even more decisive than the fighting itself. When the alarm-riders of April 18 took to the streets, they did not cry, ""the British are coming,"" for most of them still believed they were British. Within a day, many began to think differently. For George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, the news of Lexington was their revolutionary Rubicon. Paul Revere's Ride returns Paul Revere to centre stage in these critical events, capturing both the drama and the underlying developments in a triumphant return to narrative history at its finest.

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9780195088472

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Reviews

Fischer knows how to grip the reader as few historians do....Fischer succeeds brilliantly in re-creating the milieu of the 1770s. --The Commercial Appeal (Memphis) This well-written, carefully researched, and interesting book dispels much of the myth and legend that has grown up around Paul Revere's famous ride and has replaced it with an exciting account of the events on those early spring days of April, 1775....A good read as well as an excellent reference. --KLIATT, September 1995 In one of the best recent books on the Revolution, Fischer takes what might be the most famous episode from the war and carefully sifts accumulating legend from a substantial body of fact heretofore little recognized about the famous 'midnight right.' --The Virginian-Pilot and the Ledger-Star Fischer has provided a nice update of one of the semi-mythological events associated with the American revolutionary experience. What is most impressive about the book is the scholarly apparatus indluded. Revere is now a human figure acting out an historical role without mythology to get in the way. For contextural biography, this is a first-rate volume. --Gerald Michael Schnabel, Bemidji State University The action in this exciting history illuminates New England's culture--especially the ways that it differed from old England's--on the eve of the American Revolution....Fischer's details are meticulous, and provide an irresistible sense of immediacy as a slumbering countryside is wakened to war. --The New Yorker Fischer knows how to grip the reader as few historians do....Fischer succeeds brilliantly in re-creating the milieu of the 1770s. --The Commercial Appeal (Memphis) This well-written, carefully researched, and interesting book dispels much of the myth and legend that has grown up around Paul Revere's famous ride and has replaced it with an exciting account of the events on those early spring days of April, 1775....A good read as well as an excellent reference. --KLIATT, September 1995 In one of the best recent books on the Revolution, Fischer takes what might be the most famous episode from the war and carefully sifts accumulating legend from a substantial body of fact heretofore little recognized about the famous 'midnight right.' --The Virginian-Pilot and the Ledger-Star Fischer has provided a nice update of one of the semi-mythological events associated with the American revolutionary experience. What is most impressive about the book is the scholarly apparatus indluded. Revere is now a human figure acting out an historical role without mythology to get in the way. For contextural biography, this is a first-rate volume. --Gerald Michael Schnabel, Bemidji State University The action in this exciting history illuminates New England's culture--especially the ways that it differed from old England's--on the eve of the American Revolution....Fischer's details are meticulous, and provide an irresistible sense of immediacy as a slumbering countryside is wakened to war. --The New Yorker A work of rare historical distinction, an unputdownable narrative scraping away the tarnish of time and myth to reveal the essential metal of Paul Revere, silversmith. It is crammed with anecdote, represents a meticulous standard of research...and offers a peerless portrait of its subject. --The Boston Sunday Globe It is rare when a scholarly history will appeal to a general readership, but such is the case with this book....A meticulously researched and wonderfully evocative narrative that will be enjoyed by history lovers and scholars alike. --Library Journal A detailed account of the legendary 'midnight ride' as narrated by a professional historian with a scholar's command of the facts and a gift for storytelling. --Los Angeles Times Restores Paul Revere to his place in the pantheon of American heroes by clearing away the junk of myth and mockery that has grown up around him....The book tells the story of Revere's ride in great detail and the ensuing battles with all the drama they possess. --Milwaukee Journal A rare volume of history that has something for every reader. Readers with a general interest in American history will find it engaging and richly illuminating. Specialists will find it packed with a wealth of fine detail. And scholars will appreciate the close attention to the sources, evidenced by more than 100 pages of notes, appendices, bibliographical commentaries, and scholarly apparatus. The maps are excellent, illustrations numerous and skillfully interpreted, and the prose sprightly and polished....Educational and though-provoking without ever bogging down in pedanticism. --Richmond Times-Dispatch A thrilling read. Part biography, part history, this is a mesmerizing look at democracy's infancy....This is a superb examination of the whys and hows of our Revolution. --Trenton Times A valuable contribution to the debate over the social structure of New England as well as an exceptionally vivid picture of the outbreak of war. This is historical writing of a very high order. --Colin Bonwick, The Journal of American History This is the perfect book for my honors seminar--it is beautifully written, carefully researched, and carefully illustrated. The historiographical section in the appendix addresses the very issues that my students will focus on as they examine different historical and fictional accounts of major events in America's past. --Christine Compston, Western Washington University Students loved it! I enjoyed using it in classroom--will use it again. --Anthony Iacono, University of Central Florida

Those who dare to try something new often fail. Not Fischer (History/Brandeis). This biography of Paul Revere is a welcome detour from the path of his five-volume cultural history that began with Albion's Seed (not reviewed), and it successfully overcomes the risk of perceived triteness. After all, all schoolchildren think they know the story of Paul Revere's midnight ride in 1775. How could any scholar take such child's play seriously for more than 400 pages? Fischer takes it seriously because he wants future generations to separate the fact from the fiction that has come to surround the ride. The story has been told so many different ways, Fischer says, that when Americans repeat it to their children, they are not certain which parts of the tale are true, or if any part of it actually happened. It did happen. It happened because Revere was at the center of events during the American Revolution. Fischer's research places Revere as a member of five of the seven Boston-area groups instrumental in planning a revolution. Not even the better-known Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock could claim membership in as many groups. To spur his story along, Fischer focuses on British General Thomas Gage as a narrative foil to Revere. The result: history made personal and understandable. The writing is lively, the research (as documented in appendixes, bibliography, and endnotes) thorough. Best of all, the thinking is fresh and clear. Fischer has avoided the traps he warned against nearly 25 years ago in his volume Historians' Fallacies (1970). (Kirkus Reviews)

Fischer knows how to grip the reader as few historians do....Fischer succeeds brilliantly in re-creating the milieu of the 1770s. --The Commercial Appeal (Memphis) This well-written, carefully researched, and interesting book dispels much of the myth and legend that has grown up around Paul Revere's famous ride and has replaced it with an exciting account of the events on those early spring days of April, 1775....A good read as well as an excellent reference. --KLIATT, September 1995 In one of the best recent books on the Revolution, Fischer takes what might be the most famous episode from the war and carefully sifts accumulating legend from a substantial body of fact heretofore little recognized about the famous 'midnight right.' --The Virginian-Pilot and the Ledger-Star Fischer has provided a nice update of one of the semi-mythological events associated with the American revolutionary experience. What is most impressive about the book is the scholarly apparatus indluded. Revere is now a human figure acting out an historical role without mythology to get in the way. For contextural biography, this is a first-rate volume. --Gerald Michael Schnabel, Bemidji State University The action in this exciting history illuminates New England's culture--especially the ways that it differed from old England's--on the eve of the American Revolution....Fischer's details are meticulous, and provide an irresistible sense of immediacy as a slumbering countryside is wakened to war. --The New Yorker

Author Information

David Hackett Fischer is Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University. His books include the highly acclaimed Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America and Growing Old in America.

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