In Boston, 1776, author J. D. Dickey leads us through the turbulent streets, tub-thumping taverns, and radical strongholds of a town at war with an empire. Far from the powdered wigs and genteel debates of history textbooks, this book guides us through the real Boston of the American Revolution: frenzied, dangerous, and fiercely alive.

Bestselling author Buddy Levy calls it "a unique and innovative history lesson." Lawrence Mello's review in the Library Journal describes it as a "lively and meticulously researched tour of Boston during the Revolutionary War [that] is distinguished by literary vibrancy and historical insight … blending scholarly precision with active storytelling that animates the city’s revolutionary spirit." 

If you'd like to get a start on Dickey's "rogue tour" with a stroll through The North End in 1776, we posted an excerpt the author shared with us earlier this week.

Today, we are pleased to share J.D. Dickey's response to seven questions from Porchlight and discussed his new book, the new approach he used to write it, other books about the revolutionary era, and "the closest thing to a perfect work of nonfiction."

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Porchlight Book Company: Writing a book is no small undertaking. What compelled you to write this one? 

J.D. Dickey: The idea for the book came to me many years ago when I was working as a travel writer. In uncovering the hidden details about places like Washington, D.C., I realized how compelling and innovative a new approach to history could be. In my book Empire of Mud, that took the form of an alternative history to the nation’s capital, illuminating the forgotten figures and episodes that contributed to the growth of the city in the nineteenth century. And now in my current book, Boston, 1776, the alternative history to Boston isn’t set in the past at all—it’s a tour of the town written as a contemporary travel guide. Set in the present tense, the tour allows the reader to visit the major sites and significant people of Boston, street by street and neighborhood by neighborhood, to experience all the town’s color and vibrancy with an immediacy that a conventional history might not otherwise be able to convey. 

PBC: Writing (and reading) always prompts as many new questions as it offers answers to the ones you came to it with. What is one unanswered question you encountered as you wrote the book that you are most interested in answering now? 

J.D.: Because I centered the book on the year 1776, I focused my research on the revolutionary era and the years before it. However, as I mention in the book’s introduction, much of the ferment that gave rise to revolution was produced in the late 1750s and early 1760s—years before the Stamp Act riots and other key events. So the great unanswered question, then, regards the social and cultural state of Bostonians 15–20 years before the revolt. They were living in a financially strapped, declining port town burdened with a significant number of indigent residents, relatively high local taxation for the time, and many casualties from the Seven Years War (French and Indian War), in which more male Bostonians fought per capita than did residents of other colonies. So the unanswered question is, was the seed of the American Revolution planted not in the mid-1760s, but a decade before? And what changed between the 1750s and 1770s to convert angry and despondent feelings over municipal decline into active rebellion against officials of the Crown? The answer awaits the next writer to tell the tale. 

PBC: If there is only one thing a reader takes away from reading this book, what would you hope it to be?  

J.D.: Americans often like to imagine the early history of their republic was as clean and sanitized as the noble pictures they see in history books: men in powdered wigs and breeches signing important documents in parlors and posing for their portraits with an expression of genteel comfort and superiority. But in fact, politics in early America was just as rough and tumble as it is today, if not more so. Radical patriots were especially adept at bitter denunciations in the press, crude caricatures of their enemies, “fake news” and libelous accusations, mob warfare, and violent intimidation in the form of hanging in effigy and tarring and feathering. The patriots of Boston were especially skilled in such tactics, and helped drive America toward independence partially through their use of them. Somehow, though, over the course of centuries, certain historians have downplayed this side of the Revolution in favor of pretending a war could be fought by patricians alone. My book shows this to be inaccurate. Drawing on both primary sources from the time as well as the latest research, this guidebook to Boston in 1776 casts a light on how actual, flesh-and-blood Bostonians lived, worked, fought, and worshipped, and how they created an atmosphere of rebellion that inspired other colonies and led to the founding of the republic.  

PBC: One of the great things about books is that they tend to lead readers to other books. What books related to this topic would you recommend people read after (or perhaps even before) reading your book?  

J.D.: A People’s History of the American Revolution, Ray Raphael (New Press, 2011). The most important alternative history to the conflict published in recent years, with the Revolution viewed through the lens of common working people, Native people on the frontier, free and enslaved Black Americans, religious dissenters, and others. Grassroots history at its best. 

The Glorious Cause, Robert Middlekauff (OUP, 2007). The revised version of the essential history of the Revolution, from the logistics employed the generals to the medicine and nutrition given to soldiers to the social hierarchies in the cities.  

The British Are Coming, Rick Atkinson (Holt, 2020). The inaugural volume in what promises to be the definitive military guide to the conflict, with granular reports of battlefield tactics amid a larger view of international political and diplomatic strategy. 

Liberty Tree: Ordinary People and the American Revolution, Alfred F. Young (NYU Press, 2006). One of the most important volumes showing the impact of ordinary people, from common artisans to raging mobs, in creating an atmosphere of rebellion, and why their struggle still matters to us centuries later. 

PBC: What is your favorite book?

J.D.: I have many favorites and it’s hard to pick one. But I would say, the closest thing to a perfect work of nonfiction I’ve read is The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. It’s obviously not set in the era I write about, but offers an ideal example of how writers of history should compose their work. It is on one hand a technical history of the rise of atomic technology that expertly covers the physics involved in creating such a colossal new form of military warfare. But it is also a social and personal history of the early nuclear era, focusing on both politicians and scientists, and the way their innovations for better or worse have shaped the modern era, contributing to advanced technological progress as well as the ongoing threat of global destruction that can never be ignored or forgotten. 

PBC: What are you reading now? 

J.D.: I continue on my quest to read all the works of John McPhee, having just finished Table of Contents. That book, like many other books of his, touches broadly on science and nature themes, as well as natural landscapes, while also giving voice to the colorful personalities he met in his research. He describes these people so artfully, and economically, that it’s a wonder he wasn’t also a novelist, and this attribute more than any other ensures his work will endure. 

PBC: Do you have any future projects in the works that we can look forward to?   

J.D.: At the moment I’m trying to spread the word about my book Boston, 1776, so haven’t had time for a great deal of research on other subjects. But true to form, I’m always interested in “lost” urban histories like that of Washington, D.C., and in historical sagas like those of the Civil War and the Revolution. I’d imagine when I finally begin work on the next project, I’ll focus on one of those things or a combination of the two.

About the Author

J. D. Dickey is an author of narrative nonfiction about American history, society, and culture. His book Empire of Mud, covering the troubled landscape of 19th century Washington, DC, was a New York Times bestseller, and his Civil War book Rising in Flames was praised by the Wall Street Journal as “absolutely spellbinding.” Dickey has written articles on a broad range of historical, political, and travel-related topics for TIME, the Wall Street Journal, LitHub, and more, and he has appeared in media from C-SPAN’s Book TV to Public Radio International’s The Takeaway. He has lectured for the New-York Historical Society, the Pritzker Military Museum and Library, the Atlanta History Center, and the US Army War College.