Reluctant revolutionaries : New York City and the road to independence, 1763-1776 / Joseph S. Tiedemann.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-331) and index.

The Stamp Act crisis, 1763-1766. New York City on the eve of the first crisis ; The onset of conflict ; The Stamp Act ; The aftermath --The Townshend Acts crisis, 1766-1773. Conflict anew ; Urban politics and the imperial crisis ; "Liberty and trade" -- Revolution and independence, 1773- 1776. The Tea Act and the coercive acts ; Whigs and tories ; Empire and liberty ; Independence -- Epilogue: The demise of Colonial New York City.

The question of why New Yorkers were such reluctant revolutionaries has long bedeviled historians. In an innovative study of New York City between 1763 and 1776, Joseph S. Tiedemann explains how conscientiously residents labored to build a consensus under difficult circumstances. New Yorkers acted the way they did not because they were mostly loyalist or because a few patrician conservatives were able to stem the tide of revolution but because the population of their city was so heterogeneous that consensus was not easily achieved.

In framing his argument, Tiedemann explains the limitations of interpretations offered by progressive, New Left, and consensus historians. Citing the works of scholars as diverse as Walter Laqueur, Theda Skocpol, and Louis Kriesberg, Tiedemann pays close attention to the dynamics of British colonial rule and its impact on New York.

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