Defiance OF THE Patriots: THE Boston TEA Party & THE Making OF America. This item is unavailable.Defiance OF THE Patriots: THE Boston TEA Party & THE Making OF America

On the evening of December 16, 1773, a group of disguised Bostonians boarded three merchant ships and dumped more than forty-six tons of tea into Boston Harbour. The Boston Tea Party, as it later came to be known, was an audacious and revolutionary act. It set the stage for war and cemented certain values in the American psyche that many still cherish today. But why did the Tea Party happen? Whom did it involve? What did it mean? The answers to these questions are far from straightforward. In this thrilling new book, Benjamin Carp tells the full story of the Tea Party - exploding myths, exploring the unique city life of Boston, and setting this extraordinary event in a global context for the first time. Bringing vividly to life the diverse array of people and places that the Tea Party brought together, from Chinese tea-pickers to English businessmen, Native American tribes, sugar plantation slaves, and Bostons ladies of leisure, Carp illuminates how a determined group shook the foundations of a mighty empire, and what this has meant for Americans since. As he reveals many little-known historical facts and considers the Tea Partys uncertain legacy, he presents a compelling and expansive history of an iconic event in Americas tempestuous past.

Benjamin Carp is Assistant Professor of History at Tufts University, where he teaches the history of early America. He has a broad interest in revolutionary political activity, cities and the American Revolution, with a particular focus on the Boston Tea Party about which Carp has given talks across the eastern seaboard, written articles and posted blogs and podcasts. He also covered the tea party protest in April 2009 for the Sunday Washington Post (writing an op-ed piece), and was consultant to an episode on the BTP in the Days That Shook the World series, aired on BBC2, BBC4 and The History Channel. Educated at Yale and Virginia, and having taught at the University of Edinburgh, Carp brings a strong transatlantic perspective to bear on his research. The previous recipient of Mellon and Leverhulme Research Fellowships, his first book was Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution