T.H. Breen’s analysis of America’s colonials before the revolution of 1776 revisits the fascinating question of what exactly changed in the colonials’ worldview that made them ripe for revolution.

After finishing the book I had a peek at the comments of other readers. Some appreciated the study, some found it long winded, and some thought the subject was simply uninteresting.

I found it a subtle well-researched study with some profound and unexpected lessons for America today. But I won’t argue with those who found it a little too long.

Breen sees the 18th century as one long march for the colonials to becoming a new set of consumers, that the growing purchase of British consumer goods by the colonials became an irritant to relations with British Parliament, and that the new consumerism brought unexpected social changes to the colonies.

Take for example tea. At the opening of the 18th century tea was consumed by a small subset of wealthy colonials. By the 1750’s it had dropped in price and become available to many colonials, so much so that when Parliament levied tea duties many colonials were hit where it hurt the most: in the pocketbook.

Breen also finds the beginnings of coordination and cooperation between the colonies in commercial precedents, so that the model of civil reaction came from a newfound belief in the commercial boycott, then in a “subscription” model, what we would call petitions.

What I found jarring was how ordinary citizens took up the model of forcing their neighbours into an ideological conformity. If you didn’t sign the “subscription” you were suspect and assumed to favour the British.

Men blamed women for forcing their husbands to buy British goods and forced women to become involved in the political debate. And women had to be involved at a very basic level. Once women became involved they too helped enforce ideological purity and I couldn’t help but compare it to the ongoing debate about abortion.

A Supreme Court dominated by ideological Republicans is trying to enact ideological purity through its judgments. It runs against principles of individual conscience and personal freedom, but the anti-abortion groups use religious arguments to supersede arguments of personal freedom.

It also reminds me of the Soviet Union of the 1930’s, and Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

And the same happened in pre-Revolutionary America. It was the time of the first Great Awakening. Anti-British rhetoric made use of religious arguments to frame colonials’ enjoyment of fine clothing, china dishes, and tea as wasteful, and vice.

How similar do the pre-Revolutionary “Sons of Liberty” remind me of “Proud Boys” and some of the other splinter groups of the American right today. It’s mob rule and it’s chilling. ( )

This is an interesting account of the growth of a consumer market in America in the early 1700s and its influence on the subsequent revolution. The author argues that the politics of consumption consolidated common interest and mutual trust between dispersed American towns more than lofty ideas did. He uses a great number of examples to illustrate how dissatisfaction with unfair taxation gradually grew into a full-scale commercial boycott. The narrative does not extend to the revolution itself, but it illustrates quite nicely how its groundwork was laid - at least partially. I enjoyed this fresh perspective on revolutionary politics and the many vivid case studies with direct quotations from contemporary texts. But the argument could have been made a bit more concise, the book is quite long at 330 pages in small print.