The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy, 1)

An extraordinary book, beautifully written, well researched, and fascinating from beginning to end. Richly detailed, this is history at it’s best - it reads like the best adventure story, but it lands a difficult truth: but for a few brave leaders, and an equally committed and courageous army, we wouldn’t have the United States as we know it. This book should be required reading for every American.

Rick Atkinson is able to distill massive amounts of research into a gripping narrative. He has learned so much about the physical details of dress, technology, and buildings that he conjures up the scenes as thoroughly as a conscientious moviemaker would with a staff of researchers and designers. The character portraiture is first rate, too. It opens with George III, telling most of us more than we ever knew in a few pages. Atkinson depicts Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill with an accumulation of vivid detail that makes these famous names stand for bloody, costly struggles. I'm a great admirer of Liberation Trilogy, which I look forward to reading again. I have been waiting for the new trilogy since I first heard about it a few years ago. More than that, I have been waiting my whole life for a coherent and penetrating history of the Revolutionary War, which this trilogy promises to be. Congratulations to Mr. Atkinson on volume 1! 2/8/20 I have now finished this and I admire it even more than I expected to. Rick Atkinson is a writer's writer. He engineers vast research into a brisk narrative such that every sentence sparkles with historical veracity. He loves words and the unusual words he uses and shares enliven the reading. Gundalow and insectile, for example. The content is unsurpassable. War history sometimes looks like one catastrophe after another. That is certainly the case with the Battles of Long Island and Fort Washington. But thank God for Trenton and Princeton! I look forward to volume two.

This book started out by covering the political actions and circumstances that eventuality led to the start of hostilities. The book then covered the first 21 months of the Revolutionary War, from Concord Bridge (April 1775) to Washington’s crossing the Delaware (December 1776). A follow-on second book, titled “The Fate of the Day” (which I have not read) has now been published. And a future third book will then complete author Rick Atkinson’s planned trilogy of the Revolutionary War. I liked this book. It covered both the American and British perspectives, and pointed out the advantages and disadvantages each side faced. For example, to provision their troops, the British had to depend upon a 3000-mile supply line, usually against prevailing headwinds. And yet it was the Americans troops who were typically undersupplied with inferior musketry, no bayonets, gunpowder typically in short supply and even clothing and shoes in short supply. Civilians had their problems too. The American militia took from Loyalist homesteads. The British took from rebel homesteads. And the Hessians, being a mercenary force fighting in a foreign land, took from everyone. The British were experts at landing ship-borne troops on enemy shores (just as the US was in the Pacific during WW II). But conquering an island is quite different from conquering a continent. American militia could fade inland, and they were familiar with the land they were fighting on and traversing through. Another interesting aspect was how all 13 colonies eventually united together to fight the British, especially since the Southern colonies were so different from the New England colonies. It turns out the British tried to get blacks to join their cause by suggesting blacks should be free. That infuriated the Southern colonies, whose militias were, at the time, primarily a force to protect against the possibly of a slave uprising. (At that time, South Carolina’s population was half white and half enslaved black.) Bottom Line: Lots of information to give the reader a sense of life at that time. Several key battles are covered, but the book is about much more than just the fighting. A good read, though a bit slow at times.

Excellent history—well researched and vary nicely written. Highly recommended!

I bought this audiobook for our trip to Boston. It was perfect. It is the best I have heard with an honest perspective on both sides of the war. I always looked forward to turning it on again to listen and was sad when I finished. I learned so much in interesting details that enriched this amazing story. It enhanced our trip, and has ignited a greater interest in our US beginnings and the revolution. I will get more of his books. It had a good reader, too.

I have recommended this trilogy to friends and family. I am almost through with "The British are Coming" and I'm ready to start the next book in the trilogy. My undergraduate minor was history. I still read history voraciously, but too many books are so dry that the whole genre gets a bum rap. This book reads more like a novel. Quotes from people of all social and economic statuses bring life to what could be very dry. It is quite battle intensive, which fills in gaps in my knowledge of The Revolutionary War. Most books I have read have been biographies of major people, or detailed regional histories (Boston, Rhode Island, the Carolinas, etc.) ONE BUMMER: The final book will not be completed before our 250th celebration of the Declaration of Independence. Also, everyone should read the entire Declaration of Independence. It is as relevant today as it was in 1776.

The British Are Coming is the first book in Rick Atkinson’s trilogy on the American Revolutionary War covering 1775 to 1777 - the battles of Lexington and Concord to Trenton and Princeton. This is a very detailed account of all the and battles fought during this period and include the political debates and decisions on both sides. I especially liked the inclusion of the British debates and decisions, both strategically and tactically, as the revolution began and became an actual war. While I already knew a lot about the major engagements, I learned a lot about some of the lessor campaigns, especially the failed American campaign to seize Canada and the successful American defense to repulse the British attempt to seize Charleston in South Carolina. I also learned a lot more about some of the more well known campaigns, especially Lexington and Concord, the siege of Boston, and the flight from New York through New Jersey. My only criticism is that like most newer historians Atkinson crams more minutiae than is necessary; for example he takes 2 pages to describe what General Charles Lee was wearing when he arrived in Charleston to take command of the defense against the British fleet. Overall, this was an excellent account of the first 2 years of the war; I just think it could be a little shorter on the minutiae.

I read and reviewed Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy -- An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle, and The Guns of Last Light -- and thus was eager to share his thoughts about the American Revolution. Also, I was curious to know if he offers the same combination of rock-solid research and lively narrative, one that anchors human experience within an authentic historical context. This first volume of his new trilogy is a brilliant achievement in all respects. While interviewed by Scott Simon for NPR, Atkinson discusses what motivated colonial leaders to seek independence: "Certainly you had some people, white slave owners in the south for example, who felt pinched economically by the restrictions that have been placed on them. But I think that it's not romanticizing that era excessively to believe, particularly when you look at the contemporary writings and what it is they believed at the time, that [the founders] had their eye on a grander future than simply a slave-holding country that was a nice place to be if you were white and rich. I think that really we sell them short if we don't acknowledge that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator' and all those other fine words out of the Declaration of Independence are what they really believed. They're aspirational, yes." No brief commentary such as mine can do full justice to the scope and depth of information and insights that Atkinson provides in this first of three volumes in his Liberation Trilogy but I do hope I succeed in urging everyone who reads this commentary to obtain a copy and thereby accompany him on a thorough, enlightening, and entertaining exploration of two of the most important years thus far in the history of what became the United States of America. How did thirteen quite different colonies led by a wide variety of personalities accomplish that after declaring independence from what was then the most powerful nation in the world? That is one of several obvious questions to which Atkinson responds but he doesn't stop there. Another of his primary objectives is to portray these years in human terms -- with all due respect to the nature and extent of colonial ambition -- and that includes both revolutionaries and those who oppose them. Slowly, portraits of major figures reproduced in the book almost seem to come to life. They include George III, Thomas Gage, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, Joseph Warren, Israel Putnam, George Washington, Henry Knox, Benedict Arnold. Horatio Gates, William Howe, John Burgoyne, Charles Lee, Thomas Paine, and Nathaniel Greene. Also accompanying the text, there are paintings and sketches of major events that include King George's four-day review of the massive British fleet at Portsmouth; Franklin's humiliation by the king's council in the "Cockpit" in 1774; British regiments advancing on Concord in 1775; British regulars landing at Morton's Point, also in 1775; American seizure of a commanding position on Dorchester Heights in 1776; also, a "drubbing" of the British fleet off Sullivan's Island; the Hessian defeat at Trenton; and Washington's defeat pf British forces in Princeton before heading for winter quarters in the New Jersey highlands. Thanks to mini-bios and the illustrations that accompany the abundance of historical material, I never felt overwhelmed. After completing his Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson has added another masterpiece with this first volume of the Revolution Trilogy. Bravo!