The Minutemen and Their World: Book Review

The Minutemen And Their World: Book Review

Gross constructs this book as an interpretation of the American Revolution as a social movement. Gross states, "By seeing how earlier Americans have lived and struggled in their daily lives, we can come to realize them as people like ourselves and gain a new understanding of our society and our heritage". Gross uses many different biographies that assemble his argument throughout the book.

From the different biographies in the book it can be seen that tensions over church membership, social status, relationships, and of course the scarcity of land would lead to the acceptance of the revolution to regain stability and control in the townspeople's lives as well as for Concord as a whole. Gross also illustrates the struggles during the eight years after the revolution, and he also shows the new generation coming into power after 1790 to fully capture what it took for these families to regain control and bring structure to their communities.

Throughout the book Gross uses many different people's life stories, that he has gathered from various resources and original documents to reconstruct what life was like during the time of the revolution. Gross presents his evidence in a way that the reader can follow easily. To make this information clear and easy to follow Gross separated different problems and events into their own chapters. The titles of each chapter carried a lot of meaning as to what would be going on in each of the individual's lives at the time. Gross used detailed information when explaining the situations of the different families, and from the beginning to the end of the book Gross pieced together the entire story behind each of the families before, during, and after the revolution.

Gross does an excellent job of convincing the reader to agree with his argument. The way in which Gross presents his argument throughout the book is great for the reader due to the fact that it makes the reader feel personally involved with the families by telling their stories and confessions. There are many excerpts from journals and sermons that make Gross's argument seem very relevant and reliable. The book was so well written that it is hard to find flaw in Gross's argument. Since Gross's argument was so convincing, it is hard for the reader to disagree with his argument that the origins of the American Revolution arose from a social movement, as Gross provides such compelling evidence.

This book was able to portray a very realistic and convincing argument to the reader. It provides an important and relevant insight to the American Revolution. The Minutemen and Their World is important and beneficial to any reader because of its unique approach to addressing the revolution. It shares with the reader detailed daily activities of the people and the community during the revolution. It exploits