Homegrown Terror: Benedict Arnold and the Burning of New London Contributor(s): Lehman, Eric D. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0819577499 ISBN-13: 9780819577498 Publisher: Wesleyan University Press OUR PRICE: $17.06 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2017 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | United States - 19th Century - Biography & Autobiography - History | United States - Revolutionary Period (1775-1800) |
Dewey: 973.337 |
Series: Driftless Connecticut Series & Garnet Books |
Physical Information: 0.7" H x 6" W x 8.9" (0.90 lbs) 300 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 18th Century - Chronological Period - 19th Century |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: A new look at the quintessential traitor On September 6, 1781, Connecticut native Benedict Arnold and a force of 1,700 British soldiers and loyalists took Fort Griswold and burnt New London to the ground. The brutality of the invasion galvanized the new nation, and "Remember New London!" would become a rallying cry for troops under General Lafayette. In Homegrown Terror, Eric D. Lehman chronicles the events leading up to the attack and highlights this key transformation in Arnold--the point where he went from betraying his comrades to massacring his neighbors and destroying their homes. This defining incident forever marked him as a symbol of evil, turning an antiheroic story about weakness of character and missed opportunity into one about the nature of treachery itself. Homegrown Terror draws upon a variety of perspectives, from the traitor himself to his former comrades like Jonathan Trumbull and Silas Deane, to the murdered Colonel Ledyard. Rethinking Benedict Arnold through the lens of this terrible episode, Lehman sheds light on the ethics of the dawning nation, and the way colonial America responded to betrayal and terror. |