Robert Gross's The Minutemen And Their World

Robert Gross shows the significant role of Concord, Massachusetts, in the fight for independence through the perspective of the common person, in his book, The Minutemen and their World. Gross presents Concord as a town that played a great role in the revolution, while altering the community forever. Concord life is explained before, during, and after, “A shot heard ‘round the world.” Although Gross supports his ideas with numerous sources of evidence, he states that history is not simply an argument. Gross presents his viewpoint in a way that includes not just the elites, but instead incorporates the stories of blacks, women, and common men. By expressing history in this way, he allows the readers to see not only a narrowed perspective, but …show more content…
Gross takes what we previously know about one of these towns, Concord, and analyzes life their surrounding the time of the revolution. Concord had all the qualities gross was searching for in a town during the revolution. He refers to it as, “A static place in a booming nation.” To Gross, Concord portrayed itself as a means to show the American people the true history of the revolution. Concord’s social history allowed for Gross to show that every citizen didn’t rise up and protest as soon as they faced opposition by the British. By explaining the history of Concord, Gross can show the complex roots of the revolution, and how it stemmed from various events and that the war wasn’t rushed, and many were actually reluctant to support separation from Britain. Concord was important for the storage of weapons, as well as being a meeting place, and provided minutemen, who were not ordinary soldiers, but men that ended up creating a well-prepared militia. With this, Gross produced a piece of writing that has changed the way modern Americans view Concord and American history. As a reader, I too can conclude that Concord has a great historical significance, and the events that Concord was involved in transformed the town. I am able to understand this from the social history gathered and analyzed by Robert Gross, as he takes his …show more content…
What impressed me the most was not the information that Gross gave his readers, but how he gave and explained this information. The amount of research and the story behind the book adds to the way we learn history and how we perceive it. The story of Concord lets us evaluate the history of America in a bigger picture, although most of the book is centered around Concord. We learn of more than just a war, but the social changes between families and marriage choices to the change in government control over small towns to more controlling state governments. Previously I had little knowledge of the events that had taken place in Concord, despite its large historical significance. More than this though, prior to my reading I had no knowledge on what the people of this time endured and how much the revolution had changed ordinary people's lives. I am impressed with the way Gross chose to explain the history of the revolution, and the extensive amount of background given for every group, person, or place that he had introduced. I leave the book with questions pertaining to those who were on the fence about the revolution. I wonder how many colonist weren’t really in favor of the revolution and were too worried to speak out against their family in friends, and how