Harlow Giles Unger

Harvard Book Store is very pleased to welcome journalist and historian HARLOW GILES UNGER as he discusses our local stake in the American Revolution. His new book is American Tempest: How the Boston Tea Party Sparked a Revolution.

On Thursday, December 16, 1773, an estimated seven dozen men, many dressed as Indians, dumped roughly £10,000 worth of tea in Boston Harbor. Whatever their motives at the time, they unleashed a social, political, and economic firestorm that would culminate in the Declaration of Independence two-and-a-half years later. The Boston Tea Party provoked a reign of terror in Boston and other American cities as tea parties erupted up and down the colonies. The turmoil stripped tens of thousands of their homes and property, and nearly 100,000 left forever in what was history's largest exodus of Americans from America. Nonetheless, John Adams called the Boston Tea Party nothing short of "magnificent," saying that "it must have important consequences."

"A solidly researched account of the 1773 Boston Tea Party. Prolific historian Unger stresses that 'taxation without representation' was an afterthought; Britain's American colonies hated all taxes. A century of benign neglect had left them essentially self-governing and untaxed, and all reacted indignantly when London tried to assert control.... Although revered today, the original Tea Party upset many patriots; Washington and Franklin denounced the destruction of private property. As usual, it was Britain's harsh overreaction that united the opposition. Well-delineated, contrarian history." —Kirkus Reviews