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The I Index

The Boston Massacre: A Family History

Bottom of the pile

24

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

10/100

Critics

37/100

Scholars

N/A

Author:

Serena R. Zabin

Publisher:

Mariner Books

Date:

February 18, 2020

The untold 'people's history' of the storied event that helped trigger the American Revolution.

What The Reviewers Say

Kathleen DuVal,
The Wall Street Journal
... rich and highly enjoyable.
Chris Hewitt,
The Minneapolis Star Tribune
Zabin begins in Ireland, where women waited to find out if the British army would send them with their husbands to the American colony. Zabin’s research unearths fascinating details about these women, whose stories have not been told: about their fight to stay with husbands they worried they’d never see again and how they adjusted to life in America.
Dean Jobb,
The Washington Independent Review of Books
This is big-picture history told on a human scale. Generals, politicians, and other key players get their say, but Zabin is more interested in the lives of ordinary people, especially women. With the help of research assistants, she mined archival records to trace in remarkable detail the experiences of military wives.
Marjoleine Kars,
The Washington Post
Zabin changes this familiar story into a familial one. The result is a lively gem of a book that expands our views of early-modern military life, pre-revolutionary Boston, and, in turn, the American Revolution.