The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution

Stark, James HenryProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
1.5M words
Chapters
154

Tags

English Originals World History Historical ReappraisalPolitical StancePower GamePatriotismHistorical ResearchLoyalistsAmerican RevolutionModern AmericaMassachusettsWar Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American RevolutionAuthor: Stark, James Henry,Language: English, Class: E201: History: America: Revolution (1775-1783), Release Date: Mar 31, 2012

Editor's review

This book focuses on a frequently overlooked side of the American Revolution: the Loyalists of Massachusetts. Drawing on local sources, James Henry Stark examines the composition, circumstances, and positions of the Loyalist community, offering a perspective that complements mainstream narratives of the War of Independence. Its value lies not in overturning conclusions about Revolutionary history but in presenting the logic of choice and the costs faced by different groups in the same events, helping readers recognize the multi-faceted nature of historical narrative. The book involves a great many names, places, and local archives, and requires some background in colonial American history; without it, readers may easily get lost in the details. It is suitable as supplementary reading for courses on American Revolutionary history, or for thematic reading by those interested in Loyalists, migration, and political allegiance. The public-domain electronic text has no modern introduction; it is best used alongside general histories—establish a timeline first, then delve into local cases.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read a general history of the American Revolution to establish a timeline before tackling the local cases in this book.
  2. While reading, keep notes on the identities and positions of Loyalist figures to form brief biographies.
  3. Read alongside works from the Patriot perspective to compare different accounts of the same events.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Does this book defend the Loyalists? The book focuses on presenting the Loyalists' circumstances and historical sources rather than simply defending them. It supplements the mainstream Revolutionary narrative with an additional perspective; readers should treat it as one of several facets of the historical record and read it alongside Patriot-perspective works to form a more complete judgment.
What historical background is needed to read this book? It is best to first understand the basic timeline of the American Revolution, its main events, and colonial social structure. The book contains many local names and archival details that can be disorienting without a general framework; reading alongside a general history of the American Revolution is recommended.
Does the electronic edition include notes and an introduction? As a Project Gutenberg public-domain text, this book has plain formatting and typically lacks a modern editor's introduction or detailed notes. Readers must look up unfamiliar names and places themselves or consult related scholarly works for background.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Stark, James Henry Author · American

James Henry Stark was an American historian whose biographical details are limited in publicly available sources, with no clear record of his birth and death dates or educational background. Judging from the work held in this catalog, his research focused on the other side of the American Revolution, particularly the Loyalist community in Massachusetts. His representative work, The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution, systematically examines the circumstances and choices of local Loyalists, attempting to reconsider the revolutionary process from the perspective of the losing side. He also wrote a local history of Boston, indicating a sustained interest in local archives and community history. Stark's writing is distinguished by careful compilation of historical sources and attention to voices overlooked by mainstream narratives, offering a valuable supplementary perspective for understanding the complexity of the American Revolution.