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In the common cause: American response to the Coercive acts of 1774

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David Ammerman's "In the Common Cause: The American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774" is an an excellent study of the pre-war phase of the American Revolution after passage of the Coercive Acts by the British Parliament. Ammerman is able to show the powerful response these tyrannical laws caused. He goes through a detailed discussion of the politics of the Continental Congress. What I found most powerful was his discussion of the creation of the Continental Association. The Congress called for the colonies to join a Continental Association to unite in resistance to Britain. The Association consisted of committees in all the colonies that monitored the nonimportation, nonconsumption and nonexportation agreements. These committees also enforced the decrees of the Congress and Association. Violators were hauled before the committees to answer for violations of the agreement. Most were forced to recant under threat. These committees were true revolutionary bodies, ones the French would emulate two decades later.

Ammerman points out that these committees were a result of a widened franchise and mass participation by the colonists. He also points out that the Coercive Acts, due to their tyrannical nature, united the colonists like they had never been united previously. Throughout the colonies, food and other commodities were raised to be shipped to Boston, which was suffering under a naval blockade, which was authorized by the Port Act. What is also interesting is how the American Revolution's revolutionary nature and radicalism are mostly discarded by modern historians and activists. Ammerman shows how radical it actually was by his study of the committees and the overwhelming support of the mass of the people after the Coercive Acts were passed. Overall, a great study.