Customer Reviews

Sweet Land of Liberty: The Ordeal of the American Revolution in Northampton County, Pennsylvania

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Sweet Land of Liberty is a fascinating book that brings out facts that we never learned in history class. Not everyone supported the American Revolution, and there might have been good reasons why they didn't. We believe that this book should be made into a documentary film. In researching our family tree, we believe that some of ancestors were among the Northampton County families caught up in the situations described in this book. I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the Revolutionary War or German genealogy of Pennsylvania.

Brenda Merz

Having been born and raised in Northampton County I was pleasantly surprised to come across this book. I ordered it on-line, so I didn't really know what to expect.

While I did enjoy this book, I don't know if I could really recommend to anyone whose is neither from Northampton County (or Eastern PA), nor a Revolutionary War buff.

Don't get me wrong, the book is not bad. It is well written and very thoroughly researched, with over 40 pages of notes. Fox brings to light many interesting facts including the boundary dispute between the states of Conn and PA, and the fact that a signer of the Declaration of Independence is buried in Easton but the overall reading experience is hurt by two major flaws.

The first one is the lack of maps. There is one, and it isn't very detailed. Having lived there, I knew the locations that Fox was writing about, however, most readers won't have a clue.

But more glaring was the layout of the book. THe book is divided into 15 chapters, each of which tells the story of 1 or 2 individuals and either the impact that the Revoltionary War had on them, or the impact that they had on Northampton County during the war. This in itself isn't bad, but the problem with doing this is that given the relatively short period of time that Fox is writing about, many of these people's lives intertwine.

The reader therefore is forced to read and reread about the call to arms to prevent the British form marching on Philadelphia. Robert Levers, the subject of Chapter 1, pops up all over the book, and the reader is repeatedly reminded that he was Northampton County prothonotary.

In addition Fox refers again and again to the fact that the Militia and Test Acts were misused by County Officials confiscate property from Moravians, Schwenkfelders, and ultimately Mennonites, as again many of the main characters in these events were featured in their own chapter.

The stories that Fox tells are interesting, but the reader would have been better served had Fox written this more like a novel and chronologically connected all of the individuals who he wanted to make heard. This woudl have really helped the flow of the book

Again this is not a bad book, its just that few people besides Colonial Era history buffs or County residents are going to really be interested.

This book is a fascinating look into the life of "everyday" people during the Rev War years in the Lehigh Valley, PA. It is a great addition to the library of this amateur historian and genealogist in eastern PA.