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Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America. By Benjamin L. Carp. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. xvi, 311 pp. $30.00, isbn 978-0-30011705-9.)
The time is ripe for a fresh study of how Bostonians destroyed East India Company tea at die end of 1 773. Defiance of the Patriots provides that account and much more. Benjamin L. Carp rehearses the familiar story, last told by Benjamin Labaree (The Boston Tea Party, 1979), in a broad, fresh context. He takes no side on the current political appropriation of the Boston events, but he shows that the Boston Tea Party long ago became an American political icon, open to all sorts of meanings. He also suggests that it is full of tragic ambiguity, rather than just a tale of...