Posted on 09/14/2009 5:32:58 PM PDT by Pharmboy
IN PURSUIT OF LIBERTY: COMING OF AGE IN
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
By Emmy E. Werner
Potomac Books, $17.95, 190 pages
Reviewed by James Srodes
Too often books about children are written in an infantile voice as if the audience is somehow unable to read adult themes unless the prose is watered down. Happily, the book at hand is a compelling history that is both clearly written and a riveting experience for both adults and young people who are interested in Revolutionary War history from a different perspective.
The story of young people, even children, in our War for Independence has not been so much "forgotten," as the publisher's blurb claims, as simply overlooked. Yet, as author Emmy Werner notes, America was an extraordinarily young country. The first U.S. census, taken in 1790, revealed that fully half the population throughout the 13 states was 16 years old or younger.
Moreover, while education was not universal, it was pervasive, and many of these young folks kept diaries and correspondence that found their way into various archives, where they awaited discovery. One of the interesting insights gleaned from this book can be that our Revolution loomed so large in our national consciousness and for so long at least in part because there were people who heard President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address who in their youth could have seen George Washington sworn in as our first president.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I see that, I missed the footnotes.
Indeed.
They could update it as “In Pursuit of Totalitarianism”, with a pix of children in the Pubic Schoolrooms.
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