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Anybody want to ‘fess up to this? Anybody read it?

I’m working on the conclusion to last week’s Freedomista symbiosis blog. With luck you’ll see it tomorrow or Wednesday.

Meanwhile, walking to town to clear my brain and organize my thoughts, I picked this up at the post office:

It looks like an intriguing and maybe instructive book. It’s in great shape. It even came with a handwritten note from the seller, thanking me effusively (with exclamation points and red underlines) for the order.

Except I didn’t. Order it, that is.

The one thing it didn’t come with was a note naming the giver. It’s clearly from someone who already had my snailing address, but that doesn’t narrow the field much. So anybody want to ‘fess up to ordering this book for me? If not that, has anybody here read it, and if so what’s your take on it?

In any case, thank you, So-Far-Anonymous, for the very nice and timely gift.

12 Comments

  1. Comrade X
    Comrade X June 14, 2021 2:14 pm

    maybe uncle Abe sent it?

  2. Claire
    Claire June 14, 2021 2:37 pm

    It definitely came from ABE (as in the bookseller, or rather one of ABE’s vendors). But beyond that I remain without clue.

  3. Comrade X
    Comrade X June 14, 2021 3:00 pm

    I thought that would give me up, young lady.

    I’m reading it and I’m 75% through, and said to meself Claire needs to read this.

  4. Simon Templar
    Simon Templar June 14, 2021 3:23 pm

    I like the title! Any chance of a review at some point?

  5. Claire
    Claire June 14, 2021 3:41 pm

    Ah, Comrade X. Thank you. You were surely among the suspects — though a dozen others might have gone into the lineup.

    Maybe I should have been bright enough to get that “Uncle Abe” was not-so-secret code. But … well, Mensa probably revoked my membership a long time ago. So I didn’t get the clue, but I’m glad I got the book and grateful that you thought of me while reading it.

    It looks like a great book and I’m going to dive right into it.

  6. Claire
    Claire June 14, 2021 3:43 pm

    “I like the title! Any chance of a review at some point?”

    If Comrade X thinks so highly of it, I believe there’s probably a good chance I’ll review it at some point. In the meantime maybe Comrade will want to give more of his thoughts about it. Or maybe others who know the book will post their thoughts?

    The Amazon description of the book says, in part:

    Before there could be a revolution, there was a rebellion; before patriots, there were insurgents. Challenging and displacing decades of received wisdom, T. H. Breen’s strikingly original book explains how ordinary Americans―most of them members of farm families living in small communities―were drawn into a successful insurgency against imperial authority.

    A few celebrated figures in the Continental Congress do not make for a revolution. It requires tens of thousands of ordinary men and women willing to sacrifice, kill, and be killed. Breen not only gives the history of these ordinary Americans but, drawing upon a wealth of rarely seen documents, restores their primacy to American independence.

    I like that. So much of the history of American independence involves what happened in legislatures, committees of correspondence, and the actions of various leaders and heroes. I want to know more about the people who were more like us,

  7. Comrade X
    Comrade X June 14, 2021 5:09 pm

    What this book has done for me is give me an insight into a place & time I thought I knew a lot about but really don’t know nothin, don’t ya know?

    Just check out the footnotes, a lot of pages of them, the author went through a great effort to write this book.

    Since I hate Amazon it is good now I know uncle Abe;

    https://www.abebooks.com/

    They may not be any better politically but they gotta be smaller!

  8. Badger52
    Badger52 June 15, 2021 2:20 am

    Read it several years ago. It is worth having on the shelf. The High Church of Akademia doesn’t seem to care for it – all the more recommendation. I’d suggest incorporating the footnotes as you read. It illustrates what a tenuous thing this business is of first, challenging one’s ideas, and then bringing around the brain housing group to actually tossing the oppressor to the curb. Enjoy.

  9. Ted Dunlap
    Ted Dunlap June 18, 2021 5:32 pm

    Thank you all… triggered my purchase.

  10. Badger52
    Badger52 June 22, 2021 2:52 pm

    Excellent link sir.

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