good evening. i am the executive director of the society of the cincinnati. it is my pleasure to introduce our speaker this evening. i want you all to do me a favor. this is his book. he s going to talk to us about it. the book is the road to concord: how four stolen cannon ignited the revolutionary war. he will defend that premise for us a little bit later. i want to tell you what my reaction to this book is because i have had the opportunity to read it already. it is one of three books in the last 20 years i read cover to cover in one sitting. i don t read quickly. the reason i read it cover to cover in one sitting is it is extremely well written. it is graceful prose of an old-fashioned sort. and second, it is wonderfully researched, when i was taught in graduate school to refer to as a revisionist work in history. all good works of history if they are good are revisionist in some way, but he is telling us a new story about the coming of the revolution in massachusetts
i want to tell you what my reaction to this book is because i have had the opportunity to read it already. it is one of three books in the last 20 years i read cover to cover in one sitting. i don t read quickly. the reason i read it cover to cover in one sitting is it is extremely well written. it is graceful prose of an old-fashioned sort. and second, it is wonderfully , when i was taught in graduate school to refer to as a revisionist work in history. all good works of history if they are good are revisionist in some way, but he is telling us a new story about the coming of the revolution in massachusetts. a story you might have thought was already told to death. of twook is a reflection things. one, really good old-fashioned history writing of a kind we don t see as much as we used to. and the second thing is, it is indicative of the emergence of what i think is a new sort of history writing or a new kind of history research. in ways itossible was not possible 20 years ag