TOM PAINE'S WAR: The Words That Rallied a Nation and the Founder for Our Time, cursory look at a moment in history

TOM PAINE'S WAR: The Words That Rallied a Nation and the Founder for Our Time
JACK KELLY
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: In 1776, one man's words—and the determination of American patriots—allowed our nation to survive its first crisis.

We think of the "Declaration of Independence" as the Revolution's defining document. But two essays appealed even more directly to Americans' feelings in 1776. Thomas Paine—a recent immigrant and self-taught writer—saw that America's rebellion was not simply about taxes and representation. It was a true revolution that could upend the fraud of monarchy and dismantle the aristocratic privilege that had dominated the world for centuries. His pamphlet "Common Sense" convinced Americans that the king had no divine right to rule them—they could rule themselves.

Having inspired patriots to declare their independence, Paine enlisted as a private in the militia. He saw Washington's army suffer defeats. He slogged through the mud with retreating troops to Pennsylvania. There, he wrote "The American Crisis," the most stirring rallying cry in our history. It began: "These are the times that try men's souls . . ." Washington and his men took heart, crossed the Delaware River, and prevailed to fight another day.

A tribute to the Revolution's 250th anniversary, Tom Paine's War is a riveting exploration of the earliest days of our nation's birth. This is a story of the power of words—and the power of belief—and how both speak as well to America's current crisis.

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My Review: I was eager to see how much I could add to my existing store of facts and ideas about the 1776 Revolution, particularly about Paine's role in both crystallizing its justification and fomenting its passions. I got enough interesting analysis regarding the impact, and the centrality, of Paine's expressive writing to find the read involving. Paine himself has left a small footprint in the records we know to exist. There could be others yet undiscovered. Adding new facts to the narrative, then, wasn't on the cards.

This is in no way the author's responsibility, and factors in my rating only very slightly as a tinge of disappointment. I'm not able to offer a higher rating because I found the read felt disorganized, with Paine's words mostly sidelined by accounts of ordinary soldiers' opinions. It's not uninteresting, it's quite involving to see the early days of the Revolution through their eyes. But why say it's "Tom Paine's war" when he's a small part of the larger picture? Is the author attempting to demonstrate that Paine's words ignited revolutionary fervor sufficient to cause the war? In that case, many more examples, or a much deeper dive on the examples included...which frankly feels impossible to me given the paucity of records about ordinary people in eighteenth-century America...would be necessary.

While interesting, this is a shorter, better monograph (honestly, the Author's Note and the Prologue say it all) lurking in a padded read. It would be ideal for a reader new to the topic of the Revolution discussed, or unfamiliar with mass-media's role in igniting war. I think it serves as a decent jumping-off point for other readers, as there are carefully attributed notes throughout as one would expect from this author.

It was not my most successful read, but I can't complain about the prose or the idea animating the book. It's just not quite the book I expected given the title and synopsis.

JACK KELLY'S PAGE: VALCOUR: The 1776 Campaign That Saved the Cause of Liberty; GOD SAVE BENEDICT AROLD: The True Story of America's Most Hated Man

VALCOUR: The 1776 Campaign That Saved the Cause of Liberty
JACK KELLY
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$11.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The wild and suspenseful story of one of the most crucial and least known campaigns of the Revolutionary War

During the summer of 1776, a British incursion from Canada loomed. In response, citizen soldiers of the newly independent nation mounted a heroic defense. Patriots constructed a small fleet of gunboats on Lake Champlain in northern New York and confronted the Royal Navy in a desperate three-day battle near Valcour Island. Their effort surprised the arrogant British and forced the enemy to call off their invasion.

Jack Kelly's Valcour is a story of people. The northern campaign of 1776 was led by the underrated general Philip Schuyler (Hamilton's father-in-law), the ambitious former British officer Horatio Gates, and the notorious Benedict Arnold. An experienced sea captain, Arnold devised a brilliant strategy that confounded his slow-witted opponents.

America’s independence hung in the balance during 1776. Patriots endured one defeat after another. But two events turned the tide: Washington’s bold attack on Trenton and the equally audacious fight at Valcour Island. Together, they stunned the enemy and helped preserve the cause of liberty.

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My Review: I've never really understood how very much the existence of the USA is contingent on the deep stupidity of the British before reading this book. It's shocking just how little we're taught about Arnold's real contribution to the existence of the US. Valcourt, without exaggeration, was central to the success of the war effort as it denied the British possession of an extremely strategic fort.

So why is the name of the battle only a dim clang of a memory-bell in my history-loving brain? Because Arnold won it. And the reputation-destroying politicos in the Continental Congress who feared the success of anyone not named "Washington" would result in disruption of their narrative...and threaten their power...knew it. What they did after Valcourt was inexcusable, but only the first of many such slapdowns issued by politicians to military men. (They were all men; History is not satirized as "his story" for no reason.) Denying Arnold a richly merited promotion was pusillanimous.

This story of Valcourt is heavily slanted towards the naval parts of the story, with mountains of details I never knew I didn't know about ships, their functioning, their strengths and weaknesses in battle, their command structures...it's a lot to take in. I wasn't always sure I cared, while being unwilling to skip over the data because the author's sneaky and uses these facts to good effect in battle anecdotes. An old didactic trick that never fails to trip up the facile reader/student. (In college I had an entire letter knocked off my essay grade because I knew the material, but skipped class the day it was applied to a specific place so did not relate it to that place despite that being clearly stated as part of the requirement.)

Author Kelly is clearly setting a course into microhistory, prioritizing deep-but-narrow slices of the giant, continent-spanning contests facing the British and the French in the wake of their first-ever world war (The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763). If Valcour had not stopped the British from failing at Saratoga, it is doubtful Louis XVI would have funded the war for the American revolutionaries. It is easy, then, to see why someone with an historian's eye for the results of a conflict and a novelist's sense of story would light on this underknown event with glee.

It is both strength and weakness in this story. If one is not au fait with the Revolution and its roots already, this is not the place to start that journey. Too much will slow the reader's pace that the author's at pains to set...looking people up, finding out who did what to whom before the events described. As it never pretended to be an introductory text to the conflict I'm only mentioning it as a fact for y'all to be aware of in deciding about the read's suitability for your taste. I felt I knew enough to be fully engaged in the material completely new to me without worrying about the background. It is, in fact, a favorite genre of mine. Microhistories suit my own readerly desire to dig into *why* if I already know *what* happened.

I found the author's use of notes added to my interest but didn't point me in new directions for reading further about the subject. It's the reason I stopped at a fourth star. A five-star history read needs to blow me right away and/or point me in new or unexpected directions. None of that happened here. The notes demonstrated the author's superior command of archives, and his selections from those archives definitely were apt and germane.

On balance I'll recommend the read to those already interested in the Revolutionary War, and familiar with its broad strokes, who seek more colorful aspects of its story.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

GOD SAVE BENEDICT AROLD: The True Story of America's Most Hated Man
JACK KELLY
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Benedict Arnold committed treason—for more than two centuries, that’s all that most Americans have known about him.

Yet Arnold was much more than a turncoat—his achievements during the early years of the Revolutionary War defined him as the most successful soldier of the era. God Save Benedict Arnold tells the gripping story of Arnold’s rush of audacious feats—his capture of Fort Ticonderoga, his Maine mountain expedition to attack Quebec, the famous artillery brawl at Valcour Island, the turning-point battle at Saratoga—that laid the groundwork for our independence.

Arnold was a superb leader, a brilliant tactician, a supremely courageous military officer. He was also imperfect, disloyal, villainous. One of the most paradoxical characters in American history, and one of the most interesting. God Save Benedict Arnold does not exonerate him for his treason—the stain on his character is permanent. But Kelly’s insightful exploration of Arnold’s career as a warrior shines a new light on this gutsy, fearless, and enigmatic figure. In the process, the book offers a fresh perspective on the reasons for Arnold’s momentous change of heart.

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My Review: I love this description of Benedict Arnold:

In many ways, he was a typical American—cocky, restless, grasping, perpetually optimistic, quick to take offense. He was a vivid example of the self-reliance and rugged individualism that would be celebrated by Americans from Ralph Wales Emerson to Ronald Reagan. But self-reliance can beget arrogance.

The man behind the victory detailed in the book reviewed above, and the consequential actions he committed later, comes fully alive in Author Kelly's telling of his subject's character. It's not a biography, in the sense that the focus is not on Arnold the man and his life, but a political biography of the deeds he did and the responses of others that impacted him for good and ill.

I was not at all familiar with the details of the very real grievances Arnold harbored against the men who, I agree, wronged and slighted him. I'm caught up with it now. As a person, the picture of Arnold that I got from the extensive quotations from period sources is of an eighteenth-century Elon Musk, someone who can make enemies much more readily than friends while delivering results. I suspect he was as thin-skinned as he comes across in these pages because he really was a better strategist than tactician.

Ultimately his rage-quit of the Revolutionary War was completely understandable, predictable and preventable. The mediocre men who resented him for his strengths handed him the rope he used to hang himself. His own angry demons led him to use it; what he gained was material, what he lost was the lasting capital of reputation.

As I've come to expect of Author Kelly, he uses period sources galore. I'm impressed with his notes because he is scrupulous in citing the sources of opinions not leaving us to wonder if this is his opinion or something considered to be fact in the period. When it's his opinion, I see it presented as such; when it's his analysis of period opinion the same applies.

I don't suddenly like this traitor to the cause of American independence. I do empathize with him, understand "why" better, and still disapprove of his actions. A man of such tremendous capability and capacity for foresight, undone by the niggling ugliness of his character flaws.

Where have we seen that story repeated here lately....

Not a five-star, blow-me-away read, but a much better than average, really interesting story about an unjustly reviled but still critically flawed man.

SEDITION HUNTERS: How January 6th Broke the Justice System, a primer on how to build a useable dossier

SEDITION HUNTERS: How January 6th Broke the Justice System
RYAN J. REILLY
PublicAffairs Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$32.50 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The January 6th attack is an unprecedented crime in American history. Sprawling and openly political, it can't be handled by the traditional rules and norms of law enforcement—threatening the very idea of justice and its role in society.

The attack on the Capitol building following the 2020 election was an extraordinarily large and brazen crime. Conspiracies were formed on social media in full public view, the law-breakers paraded on national television with undisguised faces, and with outgoing President Donald Trump openly cheering them on. The basic concept of law enforcement—investigators find criminals and serve justice—quickly breaks down in the face of such an event. The system has been strained by the sheer volume of criminals and the widespread perception that what they did wasn't wrong.

A mass of online tipsters—"sedition hunters"—have mobilized, simultaneously providing the FBI with valuable intelligence and creating an ethical dilemma. Who gets to serve justice? How can law enforcement still function as a pillar of civil society? As the foundations of our government are questioned, the FBI and Department of Justice are the first responders to a crisis of democracy and law that threatens to spread, and fast.

In this work of extraordinary reportage, Ryan Reilly gets to know would-be revolutionaries, obsessive online sleuths, and FBI agents, and shines a light on a justice system that's straining to maintain order in our polarized country. From the moment the police barriers were breached on January 6th, 2021, Americans knew something had profoundly changed. Sedition Hunters is the fascinating, high-stakes story of what happens next.

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My Review: Keep up the good work, join the good work, do not stop shadowing the 1500 pardoned criminals in all these ways. We cannot afford to lose sight of the ugliness despite the shift at the top. We are not off the hook or out of danger by any stretch...the examples and the morals pf these folks are not to be betrayed now by not continuing the good work they did despite the betrayal at the very top.

“The essence of a democracy is that each citizen gets to express his views, exercise his choice with the right to vote,” {a judge} said. “What you were trying to do was undo the indisputable result of other people’s votes and to do it by force. And you were trying to stop the singular thing that makes America America, the peaceful transfer of power. That’s what "stop the steal’ meant. And that’s exactly the opposite of what the Constitution means.”

“Over the course of...thirty months, about 594 defendants pleaded guilty to at least one federal charge, and another ninety-eight were found guilty at contested trials. Of the 561 defendants who were sentenced, 335 were given periods of incarceration. At that point, online sleuths said, nearly 1,000 additional Jan. 6 participants who committed chargeable conduct at the Capitol had been identified, but not yet arrested. (emphasis added) That number included more than 100 rioters who were featured on the FBI’s Capitol Violence webpage.”

Do you listen to true-crime podcasts? Today's the day to try your hand at sleuthing. There's no reason to let your skills get rusty while the current regime is in power. Those in power are not going to do the sleuthing now when they wouldn't then. It is worth remembering that literal hundreds of tips that January 6th was going to get bad were given to law enforcement...and ignored. Use your internet skills to keep tabs on these people, keep watching what they say they're going to do, and believe them when they say out loud what their plan is.

It might not prevent whatever is planned, but good records will always help a reckoning come about.

It really is up to us. Read this (overcomplicated, if well-sourced) book to see how effective collective action can be.

SEDITION: How America's Constitutional Order Emerged from Violent Crisis, one of the most urgent reads of 2025

SEDITION: How America's Constitutional Order Emerged from Violent Crisis
MARCUS ALEXANDER GADSON
NYU Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$32.00 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: How Americans have weathered constitutional crises throughout our history

Since protestors ripped through the Capitol Building in 2021, the threat of constitutional crisis has loomed over our nation. The foundational tenets of American democracy seem to be endangered, and many citizens believe this danger is unprecedented in our history. But Americans have weathered many constitutional crises, often accompanied by the same violence and chaos experienced on January 6. However, these crises occurred on the state level. In Sedition, Marcus Alexander Gadson uncovers these episodes of civil unrest and examines how state governments handled them.

Sedition takes readers through six instances of constitutional The Buckshot War, Dorr’s Rebellion, Bleeding Kansas, the Brooks-Baxter War, a successful terrorist campaign to overthrow South Carolina’s government during Reconstruction, and the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898. He chronicles these turbulent periods of violent anti-government conflict on the state level, explaining what it was like to experience coup d’états, rival governments fighting in the streets, and disputed elections that gave way to violence. As he addresses constitutional breakdown, Gadson urges Americans to pay increased attention to the risk of constitutional instability in their home states. His sweeping historical analysis provides new insights on the fight to protect democracy today.

As Americans mobilize to prevent future crises, Sedition reminds us that our constitutional order can fail, that democratic collapse is possible, and offers us advice on how to save our constitutional system.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I've turned the references in the publisher's synopsis into links. I did this so you can look into the high points of the events the author has chosen to highlight in search of a context for the public, academic, and media responses to the unfolding crisis in the US Federal government. Tellingly, each of these cases examined involved a bloody uprising by some (definitionally reactionary, as they chose armed rebellion as a response to change) element of the affected population.

I'm not going to go into the events, that's why I've given you the links, but I do want to highlight a vitally important takeaway from the book. Our system only works when we all play by the rules. When any group decides the rules set out in a constitution just will not do, and determine the effort to change that constitution is better expended in imposing new rules by force, bloodshed must follow. Otherwise the path to anarchy is paved.

This is not theoretical. These are not hypothetical case studies. This is US history, researched by a professor of Law at an accredited (christian) university. His entire text, including an excellent endnotes section, is under three hundred pages. Wear your biblio-track shoes. Have coffee before reading, I had a half-star off for my inability to read and absorb it without taking copious notes. But listen, please to a voice that should be coming from inside the coup-executers' house. He brings facts to the table that demonstrate the danger, and the impracticality, of the current crisis actors' intended result.

It is too important and too imminent a threat not to learn how it has been attempted...and thwarted, however kludged together and flawed the response was...before. And at what cost.

DOMESTIC DARKNESS An Insider's Account of the January 6th Insurrection, and the Future of Right-Wing Extremism, URGENT READING!

DOMESTIC DARKNESS: An Insider's Account of the January 6th Insurrection, and the Future of Right-Wing Extremism
JULIE FARNAM
Ig Publishing
$27.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: After being named Assistant Director of Intelligence for the Capitol Police just days before the 2020 election, Julie Farnam warned its leadership of the upcoming insurrection, sharing that “Congress itself is the target on the 6th.” Tragically, her warnings were ignored.

Domestic Darkness takes us inside the explosive events of January 6, 2021, revealing how the Capitol Police disregarded intelligence about the right-wing extremists who would seize the capitol on that fateful day. In addition to offering a harrowing view of what it was like on the ground, watching the violence unfold and knowing it could have been prevented, Domestic Darkness also examines the specific groups and ideologies, such as the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, QAnon, and white supremacists, who were central to the events of January 6th and who, emboldened by Trump and other right-wing leaders, continue to be a threat to our democracy.

The book will also explore what happened within the Capitol Police in the wake of the insurrection, and how to address future dangers from domestic terrorism. With the 2024 presidential election just around the corner, we need to look at the lessons January 6th taught us to ensure something like that never happens again.

Julie Farnam served as the Assistant and then Acting Director of Intelligence for the United States Capitol Police during one of the most tumultuous periods in this country’s history. During her time there, she oversaw the identification and vetting of nearly 20,000 threats against members of Congress, most of which were made by U.S. citizens who adhered to extremist ideologies.

Prior to joining the Capitol Police, Farnam served with the Department of Homeland Security for over fifteen years.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Oh gawd, I hear y’all thinking, he’s off again, ranting about the MAGATs and their scum of a leader.

Yep. Sit down and eat your literary spinach. This is Important.

I will avoid the book report part of the read because 1. I hate doing it, b. I want to, iii. the details that Author Farnam presents made me sick to my stomach to read. That US citizens could be radicalized in this vile, scumbaggy way is a shock to my sensibilities, though in no way a surprise. I did, after all, grow up in Texas.

What I *will* discuss is the scariest, most infuriating bit of the story (to this reader, anyway)...the misogyny and unaccountability of the US Capitol Police. They dismissed a fifteen-year intelligence professional's substantiated warnings because she is a woman...they didn't have to give information to any other agencies because the Legislative Branch for whom they work is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act...they had the usual Police Department attitude towards those outside of mild contempt and utter disrespect. This is someone who came from the inside, and they treated her like she was a tourist who happened to find an unoccupied desk.

Why I want you to read it is simple: Author Farnam names names. There were those inside the US Capitol that bad, horrifying January day in 2021 who very carefully did nothing. She knows who, and makes a decent case for why. This is, by itself, worth the cost of the book. The manner in which the author makes her case for what to do with that information is a model of clarity and convincing authority. Her commonsensical call for this very important law enforcement agency to work collegially with other parts of the huge security apparatus the US is hagridden by seems modest enough, given the events of January 6, 2021. Her additional, very well founded calls for the US law enforcement establishment to expand its definitions of, and penalties for, terrorism of domestic origin are music to my cop unfriendly ears. This is a major problem and it will not go away if we just ignore it.

One of the most frustrating bits of the read was the realization that Author Farnam handed her critics a big cudgel to bludgeon her with: She had an intimate relationship with a man inside the department who, it later transpired, was feeding insider knowledge to the insurrectionists. This is in the end, however, one of the most important pluses of the read. She is upfront about it, she makes no bones about his fate of being Federally indicted for his role being just and proper, and thus assures us...possibly convinces those on the MAGAt side, too...that she speaks with real, sincere awareness of the many facets of the problems she delineates and offers solutions for.

There is no louder voice than the one from inside the house. This book amplifies that voice for us all to hear...and I very much hope heed as well.