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Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 19, 2021

by Woody Holton (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 150 ratings
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A “deeply researched and bracing retelling” (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans—women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious dissenters.

Using more than a thousand eyewitness records, Liberty Is Sweet is a “spirited account” (Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution) that explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. “It is all one story,” prizewinning historian Woody Holton writes.

Holton describes the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans—enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters—and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease. Thousands of enslaved Americans exploited the chaos of war to obtain their own freedom, while others were given away as enlistment bounties to whites. Women provided material support for the troops, sewing clothes for soldiers and in some cases taking part in the fighting. Both sides courted native people and mimicked their tactics.

Liberty Is Sweet is a “must-read book for understanding the founding of our nation” (Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin), from its origins on the frontiers and in the Atlantic ports to the creation of the Constitution. Offering surprises at every turn—for example, Holton makes a convincing case that Britain never had a chance of winning the war—this majestic history revivifies a story we thought we already knew.
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  1. Print length
    800 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Simon & Schuster
  4. Publication date
    October 19, 2021
  5. Dimensions
    6.25 x 1.5 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1476750378
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1476750378
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

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"With Liberty Is Sweet, Woody Holton once again troubles the mythical narratives of our founding and the hagiography of our 'founders' to reveal the dynamic, complicated and multiracial pressures that led to the creation of the United States. This book rightly decenters the almost exclusively white revolutionary narratives that we've all been taught and instead makes visible the influence and agency of Black and Indigenous people as well as white women, who together played such a critical, if erased, role in creating this multiracial nation. This book unsettles the reader in the best possible way, and shows once again how the simplistic histories of our founding fail to explain the divided country in which we all live." -- Nikole Hannah-Jones, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “1619 Project”

"[Holton's] marvellously creative new book offers a welcome interpretation of the American Revolution for our time. . . . Provocative and timely." -- T.H. Breen ― The Times Literary Supplement

“Liberty is Sweet is a deeply researched and bracing retelling of the origins of the American Revolution. Holton details the central role that European hunger for Indian land— and the differing views on Indian policy between British officials and Anglo-American colonists——played in the crises that led to revolution. This persuasive and necessary account will challenge all who think they know exactly why the 13 colonies opted to leave Great Britain.” -- Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University, author of On Juneteenth

"Holton depicts the revolution as simultaneously a struggle for independence and a series of overlapping conflicts between and within groups of Americans. . . . Jefferson, Washington, and other iconic founders are here, but so too are the many 'obscure Americans' who were also consequential historical actors. By foregrounding their experience, Holton arrives at a complex, bittersweet calculus of how independence was achieved and who gained or lost as a result." -- Eric Foner ― The Nation

"Even readers who think they know all about the Revolution will find here a much broader, provocative narrative and new perspectives." ― Booklist (starred review)

"In his meticulously researched, beautifully calibrated Liberty Is Sweet, historian Woody Holton adds necessary nuance, building on . . . stories previously marginalized (or invisible) in our narrative of the nation's birth while illuminating a collective yearning to form a more perfect union. . . . Holton's painstaking yet vivid military coverage is one of the book's crowning achievements." -- Hamilton Cain ― Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"[Holton] has a gift for pacing and narrative detail . . . . One of [his] aims is not simply to offer an 'inclusive' history—one where ordinary people are just added to a familiar frame—but to show us how including a wider swath of society can help us rethink the picture itself." -- Eric Herschthal ― The New Republic

"A spirited account of the Revolution that brings everybody and everything into the story." -- Gordon S. Wood, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Radicalism of the American Revolution

"A thoroughgoing work of scholarship that debunks many myths about the American Revolution by incorporating the full story involving Native Americans, African Americans, and women as participants. . . . Immensely readable. . . . A rich, multifaceted work showing how the U.S. has always been a multiracial nation." ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Presents fresh appraisals of important developments based on lives and events long condemned to obscurity." -- Sean Wilentz ― The New York Review of Books

"Skillfully probing the Revolution’s ambiguities and inconsistencies, this richly detailed, multidimensional history casts America’s founding in a revealing new light." ― Publishers Weekly

"In this provocative and wide-ranging book, Woody Holton astutely probes the causes, course, and consequences of our complex revolution. While carefully covering the usual leaders of the new nation, Liberty is Sweet also deftly explores the lives of common men and women, of diverse races, who displayed uncommon courage in pursuing their clashing visions of equality and freedom." -- Pulitzer Prize-winner Alan Taylor, author of American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804

"Holton’s exhaustive, masterfully written chronicle demonstrates that the Revolution was much more than a movement instigated by the political ideologies of a handful of elite, revered (although flawed) Founding Fathers against the British parliament and king. This book will be pivotal for scholars and requested by American history enthusiasts." ― Library Journal (starred review)

About the Author

Woody Holton is McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches and researches Early American history, especially the American Revolution, with a focus on economic history and on African Americans, Native Americans, and women. He is the author of several previous books, including Abigail Adams, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize; his second book, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster (October 19, 2021)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 800 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1476750378
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1476750378
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.5 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 150 ratings

About the author

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Woody Holton

Woody Holton

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Woody Holton (Ph.D., Duke University) is an McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches classes on African Americans, Native America, early American women, the origins of the Constitution, Abigail Adams, and the era of the American Revolution. He is especially interested in studying the impact of ordinary citizens on grand political events. He is the author of Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (1999), which won the Organization of American Historians Merle Curti Social History Award; Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (2007), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; and Abigail Adams, which won the Bancroft Prize.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
150 global ratings
Many Stories with Large Meanings
5 Stars
Many Stories with Large Meanings
Woody Holton manages a great series of lesser-known stories of the Revolution and weaves them together to help us see the complex nature of the major event. Women, families, the enslaved, Native Americans as well as the traditional cast are seen pushed together into a compelling and sympathetic story of the Revolution.
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Top reviews from the United States

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars I strongly recommend this book.
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2021
Verified Purchase
This is probably the best general history of the American Revolution since Languth’s Patriots. It covers all the major events and personalities, but also recognizes the effect of world events, including the impact of the siege of Gibraltar, revolts in India and the internal dislocations in the economy of our French allies, and gives specific and detailed attention to free and enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native American tribes, alliances and individuals, and the participation and contributions of both patriot and loyalist women. This is a great, insightful and often funny book. I highly recommend it.
15 people found this helpful
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Thomas D. Mackie
5.0 out of 5 stars Many Stories with Large Meanings
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2022
Verified Purchase
Woody Holton manages a great series of lesser-known stories of the Revolution and weaves them together to help us see the complex nature of the major event. Women, families, the enslaved, Native Americans as well as the traditional cast are seen pushed together into a compelling and sympathetic story of the Revolution.
Customer image
Thomas D. Mackie
5.0 out of 5 stars Many Stories with Large Meanings
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2022
Woody Holton manages a great series of lesser-known stories of the Revolution and weaves them together to help us see the complex nature of the major event. Women, families, the enslaved, Native Americans as well as the traditional cast are seen pushed together into a compelling and sympathetic story of the Revolution.
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4 people found this helpful
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Bruce Gilpin
4.0 out of 5 stars Revealing History of the Revolution
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2022
Verified Purchase
I think the last time I read a history of the American Revolution was decades ago when I was in college. The story I learned then was a much more one dimensional one then presented here. The only black person I knew to be involved in the revolution was Crispus Atticks in the Boston Massacre. The knowledge that thousands of blacks obtained their freedom by enlisting in the British army. Nor did I know that Abigail Adams was the owner of thousands of dollars of government bonds that she had purchased from Contential soldiers for a fraction of their face value. I thought that Native Americans were just bystanders to the revolution and not the active participants that they were. I learned a lot by reading this book.
7 people found this helpful
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richard
5.0 out of 5 stars just the title explains
Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2022
Verified Purchase
to study american histoy. excellent book
One person found this helpful
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Michael C. Lynch
5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2023
Picked this up in the bookstore at the Library of Virginia. Massively impressive, lots more detail than any other history I've read. Not so much 'secret' history as 'ignored.' Good coverage of the issue of slavery and the battles with Native tribes, as well as the contribution of women. My particular interest, economics, gets a lot of attention.
3 people found this helpful
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Glenn R. Harden
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2022
Thank you for having written such fine history. Also, thank you for your historical balance and for including so many of the voices that comprise our nation.
2 people found this helpful
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Gene G
5.0 out of 5 stars A deeper, broader look!
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2022
A deeper, broader look into the Revolution and the driving forces behind and subsequent reality and result.
2 people found this helpful
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Century Rider
2.0 out of 5 stars Confusing Mish Mash that Obscures the World Changing Legacy of the American Revolution
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2021
I think the author intended to shine a much needed spotlight on the involvement and contributions of slaves, Indians, women, lower class colonists, etc. Unfortunately, what I read was a confusing mish mash of anecdotes and incidents, usually without connection to any overall analysis of their actual impact to the Revolution at the time or its legacy today. Plus he throws in stories that have nothing to do with his thesis and further add to the confusion - how does the failed first submarine, the Turtle, have anything to do with elevating underrepresented viewpoints?
The author seems to think that his key points are new and innovative:
- That George Washington was not such a good general (but a much better politician).
- That our founding fathers were flawed humans who usually were enacting their own self interest, not some ideal about liberty.
- That our history is one of expanding into Indian lands, usually using unfair or cruel tactics.
- That our country didn't completely live up to the high ideals of the revolution.

But I already knew these things from my 1970's high school history and from far more readable popular histories like David McCullough's 1776.

Finally, he ignores far more important themes that add needed context. Key to understanding the revolution is the 125 years of benign neglect starting with the English civil war that built the tradition of self rule and freewheeling independence that reacted so forcefully to the British attempts to crack down in the 1760s and 70s. And most importantly, despite all the ways it fell short in practice, the American Revolution has inspired the world for nearly 250 years and has continued expand its protections and promise to those previously marginalized people. I wish I could say that the author believes this but if so, it is not in the book.
45 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Steven Megannety
5.0 out of 5 stars Please America read this
Reviewed in Canada on May 10, 2022
Verified Purchase
Reads like a novel; enlightens, entertains and has you saying “no way” a lot.
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