Governed by a Spirit of Opposition

Book excerpt: "To what extent did the American Revolution involve ordinary people? Historians as notable as Carl Becker and Edmund Morgan famously have asked this question or versions of it, but here Roney approaches it afresh by examining local governance and civic associations in Philadelphia, the largest colonial American city. How did popular participation in charity, schools, the militia, and informal banks prepare people to adopt radical ideas and take to the streets protesting against tyranny in the 1760s and 70s? Roney's GOVERNED BY A SPIRIT OF OPPOSITION will both be an important addition to the current literature on public life in early America, and also to the wider literature on urban governance in the British Atlantic in the eighteenth century. She sheds light on the powerful roles played by men acting in the political and constitutional circumstances of early Philadelphia leading up to the Revolution"--