Very early in her career, American colonial historian Mary Beth Norton came to believe that the critical year in American independence was not 1776, but the year, 1774. But her academic focus on women's colonial history, sidelined her interest in fleshing out this theory. But the author of the critical women's histories, "In the Devil's Snare", "Liberty's Daughters." and "Separated by Their Sex," has returned to this thesis, in her latest book, "1774: The Long Year of Revolution." In this pivotal 17 months period, from the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, to the first shots at Lexington and Concord in April, 1775, Norton says the correspondence, pamphets and newspaper accounts she's read, demonstrate an evolution in thinking throughout the 13 colonies--from a loyalty to Great Britain, to a viewpoint that British rule must change, or war was inevitable. Norton is a professor emerita of American history at Cornell University, and discusses her new book on this edition of StudioTulsa.
"1774: The Long Year of Revolution"
