“From house to house and farm to farm, as Gross walks alongside Concord residents―affluent and indigent; enslaved, indentured, and free; across generations and gender―he shows how everyday men and women navigated years of acute division and crisis.”
In The Minutemen and Their World, acclaimed historian Robert Gross reexamines the American Revolution through the lives of the ordinary men and women of Concord, Massachusetts. First published in 1976 and awarded the Bancroft Prize, the book transformed the study of Revolutionary America by revealing how local communities experienced the political, social, and economic upheaval that shaped the nation's founding. Published in a revised edition for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, Gross's enduring work offers a richly detailed portrait of the people behind the Revolution and the world they fought to create.
Robert Gross is the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Professor of Early American History Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including The Minutemen and Their World, Books and Libraries in Thoreau's Concord, and The Transcendentalists and Their World. A former assistant editor at Newsweek, his writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Esquire, Harper's Magazine, and The Yale Review.
Our Speaker Series is free & open to the public! Light refreshments will be served.
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This series is made possible by our generous sponsor, Christine Mayer, and is presented in partnership with the Wellesley Free Library.