Historical accuracy and human understanding require coming down from the high ground and seeing
people in all their complexity. Serena Zabin's rich and highly enjoyable book does just
that.-Kathleen DuVal Wall Street Journal A dramatic untold people's history of the storied
event that helped trigger the American Revolution. The story of the Boston Massacre-when on a
late winter evening in 1770 British soldiers shot five local men to death-is familiar to
generations. But from the very beginning many accounts have obscured a fascinating truth: the
Massacre arose from conflicts that were as personal as they were political. Professor Serena
Zabin draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are
dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists. And
she reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and children who
accompanied these armies. We see these families jostling with Bostonians for living space
finding common cause in the search for a lost child trading barbs and sharing baptisms.
Becoming in other words neighbors. When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street it was
these intensely human now broken bonds that fueled what quickly became a bitterly fought
American Revolution. Serena Zabin's The Boston Massacre delivers an indelible new slant on
iconic American Revolutionary history.
