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Deal Domains - The Perils of Peace: America's Struggle for Survival After Yorktown
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $8.53
Your Save: $ 6.42 ( 43% )
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Manufacturer: Collins
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9780061139116
ISBN: 0061139114
Label: Collins
Manufacturer: Collins
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: 2008-10-01
Publisher: Collins
Release Date: 2008-09-30
Studio: Collins
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Revolutionary War
Comment: Bought it for a friend. He was unable to find it a the price given by Amazon. Excellent book.
Tom
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Revolution Was a Near Run Thing
Comment: Fleming does a good job is showing that the American Revolution did not end with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. Sizable British Armies still remained in New York and in South Carolina. George III viewed the surrender as a temporary setback.
Congress was on the verge of bankruptcy. The states refused to pay taxes to the Federal Government. Washington's army was unpaid and Greenes army was starving. American Diplomacy was in shambles as those opposed to Franklin's style of subtle negotiations with the French sought to undermine him at every turn.
Only internal struggles in Parliament saved the day as various opposition Parties struggled for power even as the Royal Navy in the Carribbean and Gibralter turned the tide of the military side of the war back to Britain's favor.
Fleming does a good job of aquaintng us with the major political and military players. Washington, Morris, Franklin, Adams on the one side, George III, Burke, Loed North, Lord Shelbourne on the other.
One gets the feeling if the British would have waited until 1784 history would be a lot different.
Customer Rating:
Summary: 3 1/2 stars, nicely done
Comment: Thomas Fleming's "The Perils of Peace" is an enjoyable narrative that effectively illustrates the difficulties the United States faced between the climactic battle of Yorktown and the signing of the peace treaty. It's a fairly quick read and relatively suspenseful. I was glad to learn more about this oft-overlooked period of the Revolution.
What I most like about the book is the way Fleming keeps the reader apprised of the developments in England, France and the U.S. He provides an interesting look into the upheaval in George III's government, as well as the discontent among American peacemakers and the shockingly bad financial management by Congress. Having read books about Hamilton, Adams, Franklin and Jefferson, I wondered how much new information I'd learn, but I was pleasantly surprised.
While the subject matter is interesting, it's not so riveting that it provides 230 pages of a gripping drama. It's good, and Fleming does an effective job with it; I would recommend it to history buffs. But I wouldn't put it in the category of historical narratives that transcend history and would appeal to the average reader. For those like myself with an interest in this period, it's well worth the time and shouldn't take too long to read. All in all, a pretty solid book from Fleming.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Story, Well Written And Researched
Comment: This excellent book deals with the immediate aftermath of the British surrender at Yorktown, up to George Washington's resigning his commission, a deliberate and gracious act that truly astounded the world. An easy read, it sometimes seems more like a fast paced mystery novel than the historical narrative that it is. We take our national existence for granted today, but it was very much in doubt back then. The story covers many things, but perhaps one of the most illuminating is the active maintenance of honor in response to repeated betrayals and spiteful destructiveness by career politicians, not to mention the fantastic folly of the main European governments. The action literally covers the globe, from the southern American states/provinces, to Western Europe, the Caribbean and the Far East, Canada and the Iberian Peninsula, the American Revolutionary War was, perhaps, the world's first World War. Highly recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Eminently readable history
Comment: An extremely readable history! Thomas Fleming is an historian who has the gift of writing a narrative story that's hard to stop reading. Of course the events and characters are nothing less than fascinating, but he gives them life that can be rarely be found in fiction. His knowledge of the events following Yorktown is passed to the reader in an amazingly coherent, complete, and readable story. I wish he could write the history of everything. Okay, The Story of Britain by Rebecca Fraser and History of France from the Earliest Times by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot were equally readable, fascinating, and important, but I can't think of any other histories I've read recently that are (I read Fleming's Liberty! The American Revolution many years ago and also admired it greatly).
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Editorial Reviews:
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On October 19, 1781, Great Britain's best army surrendered to General George Washington at Yorktown. But the future of the 13 former colonies was far from clear. A 13,000-man British army still occupied New York City, and another 13,000 regulars and armed loyalists were scattered from Canada to Savannah, Georgia. Meanwhile, Congress had declined to a mere 24 members, and the national treasury was empty. The American army had not been paid for years and was on the brink of mutiny. In Europe, America's only ally, France, teetered on the verge of bankruptcy and was soon reeling from a disastrous naval defeat in the Caribbean. A stubborn George III dismissed Yorktown as a minor defeat and refused to yield an acre of “my dominions” in America. In Paris, Ambassador Benjamin Franklin confronted violent hostility to France among his fellow members of the American peace delegation. Thomas Fleming moves elegantly between the key players in this riveting drama and shows that the outcome we take for granted was far from certain. With fresh research and masterful storytelling, Fleming breathes new life into this tumultuous but little known period in America's history.
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