Hurricane of Independence
The Untold Story of the Deadly Storm at the Deciding Moment of the American Revolution
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The sleeper history hit of 2008, released in paperback to coincide with the heart of hurricane season
On September 2, 1775, the eighth deadliest Atlantic hurricane of all time landed on American shores. Over the next days, it would race up the East Coast, striking all of the important colonial capitols and killing more than four thousand people. In an era when hurricanes were viewed as omens from God, what this storm signified to the colonists about the justness of their cause would yield unexpected results.
Drawing on ordinary individuals and well-known founders like Washington and Franklin, Tony Williams paints a stunning picture of life at the dawn of the American Revolution, and of the weighty choice people faced at that deciding moment.
Hurricane of Independence brings to life an incredible time when the forces of nature and the forces of history joined together to produce courageous stories of sacrifice, strength, and survival.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his first book, Williams sheds light on the obscure hurricanes that battered America's east coast all the way up to Newfoundland in September 1775. But this account promises more than it delivers: the first vaunted "storm at the deciding moment of the American Revolution" affected the colonies very little, while the second hurricane hit Canada and killed some 4,000 cod fishermen, but is tangential to the American uprising. Williams consequently presses the "storm of war" metaphor and fills out the book with lengthy descriptions of what was going on in various American cities hit by the hurricane. He is on surer ground in his discussions about how weather influenced political affairs and its potent religious symbolism. Were the storms evidence of God's desire to punish the rebels for their insolence toward King George III? If so, then why were the British prevented from attacking Dorchester Heights by a fierce storm, and why was Lord Cornwallis's plan to escape from Yorktown frustrated by a powerful gale? Thinner than his first, this book offers some illumination on the colonial worldview, but little on the Revolution.
