Introduction: Lives, Interrupted
Ch. 1: Fathers and Sons
Ch. 2: Moses and Phoebe
Ch. 3: Son of Linonia
Ch. 4: The Unhappy Misunderstanding
Ch. 5: More Extensive Public Service
Ch. 6: A Very Genteel Looking Fellow
Ch. 7: The Terrible Crisis of My Earthly Fate
Ch. 8: Post Mortem
Notes
Index
Virginia DeJohn Anderson is Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is the author of New England's Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the Seventeenth Century, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America, and American Journey: A History of the United States.
"A highly readable and accessible double biography...The Martyr and
the Traitor is part of a current trend of books on the American
Revolution that casts the American Revolution as a civil war. This
book has great potential in the undergraduate classroom: It is hard
to think of a more vivid example of contingency. Through these two
evocative stories readers come away with an understanding of how
global politics reverberated along local lines." --
Serena Zabin, Journal of the Early Republic
"Well written and thought provoking ... The Martyr and the Traitor
is a most welcome reminder of the complex personal struggles
entailed in the building of the American nation. Virginia DeJohn
Anderson's telling of the stories of Nathan Hale and Moses Dunbar
dispels any facile slogans of patriotic fervor." -- Robert S.
McPherson, Michigan War Studies Review
"Groundbreaking and relevant....Anderson's work is a microhistory
of two individuals with a highly engaging biographical narrative
that shows how social networks, circumstances, and localized
concerns influenced loyalties and decisions....Highly engaging,
eloquent, and convincing, the narrative at once further complicates
and yet clarifies how the Revolution played out on a localized
scale....Anderson presents sophisticated scholarship in an inviting
manner and
really opens up the world of Hale and Dunbar to the reader along
with the crucial reminder that American independence was not a
foregone conclusion and how easily things could have been
different....A
page turner."--Kelly Mielke, Journal of the American Revolution
"Anderson's well-researched and well-written dual biography
deserves public acclaim....The Martyr and the Traitor would be an
excellent addition to any early American history class."--Timothy
C. Hemmis, H-War
"By examining the short lives and dramatic executions of two
passionate young men on opposing sides, Virginia DeJohn Anderson
illuminates the painful political decisions demanded by a complex
revolution and the swirling fortunes of war. With careful research
and in deft prose, Anderson brilliantly recovers the human drama
and life-and-death stakes of the civil war that we call the
American Revolution." - Alan Taylor, author of American
Revolutions: A
Continental History, 1750-1804
"The Martyr and The Traitor exemplifies Virginia Anderson's
scholarly finesse and literary skill. The opening is simply
stunning. It is not just the rich narration that gives the book
power, but the elegance of its argument. Anderson reminds us that
while it is easy to kill a man, it is impossible to control the
lessons people might draw from such an act." - Laurel Thatcher
Ulrich, author of A Midwife's Tale
"A compelling story of revolutionary America unfolds in these
pages, one that captures the lives of young men and women who came
of age during these years of crisis by charting the fates of a
famous rebel spy and a committed loyalist." - Christine Leigh
Heyrman, author of American Apostles: When Evangelicals Entered the
World of Islam
"In this engrossing dual biography of two young Connecticut men
executed for treason by opposing sides in the revolutionary war,
one the famous Nathan Hale and the other the obscure Moses Dunbar,
Virginia Anderson brilliantly introduces modern readers to issues
of loyalty and honor in the late eighteenth century. Which of her
subjects, one might ask, was the martyr and which the traitor? Her
narrative casts important new light on unfamiliar political
uncertainties in revolutionary New England." - Mary Beth Norton,
author of In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of
1692
"Both Nathan Hale and Moses Dunbar were Connecticut Yankees. Both
were hanged as spies. Following them to the gallows, Virginia
Anderson gives us a powerful tale about the American Revolution's
bitter, tragic conflicts." - Edward Countryman, Southern Methodist
University
"No less than others, the American Revolution was not just a matter
of declarations and high-mindedness, but a bitter internal conflict
that tore apart individuals, families and their communities.
Anderson's fine work exposes to view these often hidden realities."
- Publishers Weekly
"The author asks readers to question their education concerning the
Revolutionary War and its black-and-white rendering of patriots as
good and loyalists as evil. In the process, Anderson successfully
documents not only the injustices done to colonists by the British,
but also the mistreatment of loyalists by the Whigs, a subject that
is often overlooked... This book will be of great importance to
readers interested in the legacy and memory of American
conflicts." - Library Journal
"This is a tale of two men, two causes and two tragedies: two
Connecticut farm boys who yearned for something better, two young
men caught up in the fearsome tumult of revolution, two steadfast
soldiers who refused to repent before they hanged. One is
well-known: Nathan Hale, the American spy who regretted that he had
but one life to lose for his country. The other is Moses Dunbar, a
lowly Anglican Loyalist whom most of his countrymen wanted to
forget... a
moving coming-of-age (and end-of-life) story as well as a military
history and a spy thriller." --The Wall Street Journal
"This dual biography of a famous patriot and a virtually unknown
loyalist demonstrates the perplexing choices many Americans faced
during the Revolution...Its real value (there is little available
information on the men themselves) is the author's meticulous
untangling of the social, educational, cultural, economic, and
religious threads that eventually led people with similar
backgrounds to choose opposite sides in the conflict. This
engaging, lucid
micro-study reminds readers that when history is written by the
winners, much gets left out....Recommended." -- Choice
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