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In the years before the battle of Lexington and Concord, local people—men and women of common means but of uncommon courage—overturned British authority and declared themselves free from colonial oppression, with acts of rebellion that long predated the Boston Tea Party. In rural towns such as Worcester, Massachusetts, democracy set down roots well before the Boston patriots made their moves in the fight for independence. Richly documented, The First American Revolution recaptures in vivid detail the grassroots activism that drove events in the years leading up to the break from Britain.
Ray Raphael has written more than twenty books, including A People’s History of the American Revolution, The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord, Founders: The People Who Brought You a Nation, Constitutional Myths: What We Get Wrong and How to Get It Right, Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past, and The Spirit of 74: How the American Revolution Began (co-authored with Marie Raphael), all published by The New Press. He has taught at a one-room public high school, Humboldt State University, and College of the Redwoods and is currently a senior research fellow at Humboldt State University and associate editor of Journal of the American Revolution. He lives in Northern California, where he hikes and kayaks.