Awards

• Runner-up for Harry M. Ward American Revolution Round Table of Richmond Book Award 2020 (United States)
• Winner of Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Award 2019 (United States)

Overview

"When Americans declared independence in 1776, they cited King George III ""for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us."" In Quarters, John Gilbert McCurdy explores the social and political history behind the charge, offering an authoritative account of the housing of British soldiers in America. Providing new interpretations and analysis of the Quartering Act of 1765, McCurdy sheds light on a misunderstood aspect of the American Revolution. Quarters unearths the vivid debate in eighteenth-century America over the meaning of place. It asks why the previously uncontroversial act of accommodating soldiers in one's house became an unconstitutional act. In so doing, Quarters reveals new dimensions of the origins of Americans' right to privacy. It also traces the transformation of military geography in the lead up to independence, asking how barracks changed cities and how attempts to reorder the empire and the borderland led the colonists to imagine a new nation. Quarters emphatically refutes the idea that the Quartering Act forced British soldiers in colonial houses, demonstrates the effectiveness of the Quartering Act at generating revenue, and examines aspects of the law long ignored, such as its application in the backcountry and its role in shaping Canadian provinces. Above all, Quarters argues that the lessons of accommodating British troops outlasted the Revolutionary War, profoundly affecting American notions of place. McCurdy shows that the Quartering Act had significant ramifications, codified in the Third Amendment, for contemporary ideas of the home as a place of domestic privacy, the city as a place without troops, and a nation with a civilian-led military."

Full Product Details

9781501768187

Table of Contents

Reviews

Quarters places the issue of housing troops at the center not only of the Revolution, but of American political and social culture as colonists struggled to define boundaries between public and private spheres. * Choice * The book is a masterful telling of personal, local stories about the challenges and impacts of quartering, while maintaining a fast-paced book... it is indispensable reading for those interested in any aspect of the American Revolution. * Journal of the American Revolution * McCurdy follows the debates over billeting to analyze colonial-imperial proceedings, civilian-military relations, and personal rights. He argues that as the debates changed their ideas about public versus private places and the rights of people within them, Americans also rethought the ties between metropole and periphery... Quarters is a valuable study of an increasing clash of cultures within and between imperial and colonial, marital and civil, and policies and institutions that served as a foundation for revolutionary political and military formations. * William and Mary Quarterly * Quarters reveals and fills a significant gap in the literature on the revolution, and corrects some widespread misunderstandings... Quarters succeeds in illuminating a long-neglected dimension of British-American relations during the run-up to independence. * The Journal of Military History * Several factors combine to make Quarters a most welcome and original contribution to our understanding of the American Revolution...Quarters will spark salutary further discussion on the subject of American independence. It will certainly appeal to an audience of scholars of the Revolution, as well as anyone interested in eighteenth-century military institutions, including advanced undergraduate and doctoral students. Most importantly, it may alter for the better how civil–military relations in the colonial period are taught in American History classrooms. * MICHIGAN War Studies Review * McCurdy injects the pre-Revolutionary decades with a new spatial civilian-military dynamic in a way that changes how we understand well-studied topics such as Pontiac's War, the Proclamation Line of 1763, the Coercive Acts of 1774—and the development of a distinct American identity. * Early American Literature * Quarters is equally a social and political history; it should be widely read by historians across fields. It recovers the lived experiences of individuals, families, and communities. Refreshingly, women figure prominently in this narrative—the military was not a solely male space, nor was the world of politics a single-gendered space... The otherwise-familiar origins of the American Revolution look different thanks to McCurdy's work. * The Journal of American History * In challenging historians to think beyond the acrimony that often dominates discussions about the relationship between British soldiers and colonists, McCurdy will cause historians to consider quarters seriously not just in the practical function they served the military but their broader significance within the British imperial perspective. As McCurdy compellingly argues, military geography was central to the events tha sparked revolutionary sentiment and unification among the old British North American colonists leading up to the outbreak of war in 1775. * JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC * As John Gilbert McCurdy notes, there has never been a book-length treatment of the subject. Happily this omission has now been redressed in McCurdy's excellent monograph. The neglect of this topic is part of a larger failure to put military history into conversation with social and political history in a sustained and insightful way... Clearly argued and gracefully written, Quarters is an important contribution to this neglected area of inquiry that illuminates much about the challenges of imperial governance and the sensitivities of the revolutionary generation. * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW * Good books are not just books with which you are in complete agreement. Above all, they are books that make you think afresh about your own views. On that critical test, McCurdy's Quarters is a very fine book indeed. * Journal of Early American History *

Quarters places the issue of housing troops at the center not only of the Revolution, but of American political and social culture as colonists struggled to define boundaries between public and private spheres. * Choice * The book is a masterful telling of personal, local stories about the challenges and impacts of quartering, while maintaining a fast-paced book... it is indispensable reading for those interested in any aspect of the American Revolution. * Journal of the American Revolution * McCurdy follows the debates over billeting to analyze colonial-imperial proceedings, civilian-military relations, and personal rights. He argues that as the debates changed their ideas about public versus private places and the rights of people within them, Americans also rethought the ties between metropole and periphery... Quarters is a valuable study of an increasing clash of cultures within and between imperial and colonial, marital and civil, and policies and institutions that served as a foundation for revolutionary political and military formations. * William and Mary Quarterly * Quarters reveals and fills a significant gap in the literature on the revolution, and corrects some widespread misunderstandings... Quarters succeeds in illuminating a long-neglected dimension of British-American relations during the run-up to independence. * The Journal of Military History * Several factors combine to make Quarters a most welcome and original contribution to our understanding of the American Revolution...Quarters will spark salutary further discussion on the subject of American independence. It will certainly appeal to an audience of scholars of the Revolution, as well as anyone interested in eighteenth-century military institutions, including advanced undergraduate and doctoral students. Most importantly, it may alter for the better how civil-military relations in the colonial period are taught in American History classrooms. * MICHIGAN War Studies Review * McCurdy injects the pre-Revolutionary decades with a new spatial civilian-military dynamic in a way that changes how we understand well-studied topics such as Pontiac's War, the Proclamation Line of 1763, the Coercive Acts of 1774-and the development of a distinct American identity. * Early American Literature * Quarters is equally a social and political history; it should be widely read by historians across fields. It recovers the lived experiences of individuals, families, and communities. Refreshingly, women figure prominently in this narrative-the military was not a solely male space, nor was the world of politics a single-gendered space... The otherwise-familiar origins of the American Revolution look different thanks to McCurdy's work. * The Journal of American History * In challenging historians to think beyond the acrimony that often dominates discussions about the relationship between British soldiers and colonists, McCurdy will cause historians to consider quarters seriously not just in the practical function they served the military but their broader significance within the British imperial perspective. As McCurdy compellingly argues, military geography was central to the events tha sparked revolutionary sentiment and unification among the old British North American colonists leading up to the outbreak of war in 1775. * JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC * As John Gilbert McCurdy notes, there has never been a book-length treatment of the subject. Happily this omission has now been redressed in McCurdy's excellent monograph. The neglect of this topic is part of a larger failure to put military history into conversation with social and political history in a sustained and insightful way... Clearly argued and gracefully written, Quarters is an important contribution to this neglected area of inquiry that illuminates much about the challenges of imperial governance and the sensitivities of the revolutionary generation. * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW * Good books are not just books with which you are in complete agreement. Above all, they are books that make you think afresh about your own views. On that critical test, McCurdy's Quarters is a very fine book indeed. * Journal of Early American History *

Quarters places the issue of housing troops at the center not only of the Revolution, but of American political and social culture as colonists struggled to define boundaries between public and private spheres. * Choice * The book is a masterful telling of personal, local stories about the challenges and impacts of quartering, while maintaining a fast-paced book... it is indispensable reading for those interested in any aspect of the American Revolution. * Journal of the American Revolution * McCurdy follows the debates over billeting to analyze colonial-imperial proceedings, civilian-military relations, and personal rights. He argues that as the debates changed their ideas about public versus private places and the rights of people within them, Americans also rethought the ties between metropole and periphery... Quarters is a valuable study of an increasing clash of cultures within and between imperial and colonial, marital and civil, and policies and institutions that served as a foundation for revolutionary political and military formations. * William and Mary Quarterly * Quarters reveals and fills a significant gap in the literature on the revolution, and corrects some widespread misunderstandings... Quarters succeeds in illuminating a long-neglected dimension of British-American relations during the run-up to independence. * The Journal of Military History * Several factors combine to make Quarters a most welcome and original contribution to our understanding of the American Revolution...Quarters will spark salutary further discussion on the subject of American independence. It will certainly appeal to an audience of scholars of the Revolution, as well as anyone interested in eighteenth-century military institutions, including advanced undergraduate and doctoral students. Most importantly, it may alter for the better how civil-military relations in the colonial period are taught in American History classrooms. * MICHIGAN War Studies Review * McCurdy injects the pre-Revolutionary decades with a new spatial civilian-military dynamic in a way that changes how we understand well-studied topics such as Pontiac's War, the Proclamation Line of 1763, the Coercive Acts of 1774-and the development of a distinct American identity. * Early American Literature * Quarters is equally a social and political history; it should be widely read by historians across fields. It recovers the lived experiences of individuals, families, and communities. Refreshingly, women figure prominently in this narrative-the military was not a solely male space, nor was the world of politics a single-gendered space... The otherwise-familiar origins of the American Revolution look different thanks to McCurdy's work. * The Journal of American History * In challenging historians to think beyond the acrimony that often dominates discussions about the relationship between British soldiers and colonists, McCurdy will cause historians to consider quarters seriously not just in the practical function they served the military but their broader significance within the British imperial perspective. As McCurdy compellingly argues, military geography was central to the events tha sparked revolutionary sentiment and unification among the old British North American colonists leading up to the outbreak of war in 1775. * JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC * As John Gilbert McCurdy notes, there has never been a book-length treatment of the subject. Happily this omission has now been redressed in McCurdy's excellent monograph. The neglect of this topic is part of a larger failure to put military history into conversation with social and political history in a sustained and insightful way... Clearly argued and gracefully written, Quarters is an important contribution to this neglected area of inquiry that illuminates much about the challenges of imperial governance and the sensitivities of the revolutionary generation. * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW * Good books are not just books with which you are in complete agreement. Above all, they are books that make you think afresh about your own views. On that critical test, McCurdy's Quarters is a very fine book indeed. * Journal of Early American History *

Several factors combine to make Quarters a most welcome and original contribution to our understanding of the American Revolution...Quarters will spark salutary further discussion on the subject of American independence. It will certainly appeal to an audience of scholars of the Revolution, as well as anyone interested in eighteenth-century military institutions, including advanced undergraduate and doctoral students. Most importantly, it may alter for the better how civil-military relations in the colonial period are taught in American History classrooms. -- MICHIGAN War Studies Review Good books are not just books with which you are in complete agreement. Above all, they are books that make you think afresh about your own views. On that critical test, McCurdy's Quarters is a very fine book indeed. -- Journal of Early American History As John Gilbert McCurdy notes, there has never been a book-length treatment of the subject. Happily this omission has now been redressed in McCurdy's excellent monograph. The neglect of this topic is part of a larger failure to put military history into conversation with social and political history in a sustained and insightful way... Clearly argued and gracefully written, Quarters is an important contribution to this neglected area of inquiry that illuminates much about the challenges of imperial governance and the sensitivities of the revolutionary generation. -- AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW Quarters is equally a social and political history; it should be widely read by historians across fields. It recovers the lived experiences of individuals, families, and communities. Refreshingly, women figure prominently in this narrative--the military was not a solely male space, nor was the world of politics a single-gendered space... The otherwise-familiar origins of the American Revolution look different thanks to McCurdy's work. -- The Journal of American History In challenging historians to think beyond the acrimony that often dominates discussions about the relationship between British soldiers and colonists, McCurdy will cause historians to consider quarters seriously not just in the practical function they served the military but their broader significance within the British imperial perspective. As McCurdy compellingly argues, military geography was central to the events tha sparked revolutionary sentiment and unification among the old British North American colonists leading up to the outbreak of war in 1775. -- JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC McCurdy injects the pre-Revolutionary decades with a new spatial civilian-military dynamic in a way that changes how we understand well-studied topics such as Pontiac's War, the Proclamation Line of 1763, the Coercive Acts of 1774--and the development of a distinct American identity. -- Early American Literature Quarters places the issue of housing troops at the center not only of the Revolution, but of American political and social culture as colonists struggled to define boundaries between public and private spheres. -- Choice Quarters reveals and fills a significant gap in the literature on the revolution, and corrects some widespread misunderstandings... Quarters succeeds in illuminating a long-neglected dimension of British-American relations during the run-up to independence. -- The Journal of Military History McCurdy follows the debates over billeting to analyze colonial-imperial proceedings, civilian-military relations, and personal rights. He argues that as the debates changed their ideas about public versus private places and the rights of people within them, Americans also rethought the ties between metropole and periphery... Quarters is a valuable study of an increasing clash of cultures within and between imperial and colonial, marital and civil, and policies and institutions that served as a foundation for revolutionary political and military formations. -- William and Mary Quarterly The book is a masterful telling of personal, local stories about the challenges and impacts of quartering, while maintaining a fast-paced book... it is indispensable reading for those interested in any aspect of the American Revolution. -- Journal of the American Revolution

Author Information

John Gilbert McCurdy is Professor of History at Eastern Michigan University. He is the author of Citizen Bachelors.

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