The Boston Massacre

A Family History

By: Serena Zabin

Narrated by: Andrea Gallo

Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

A dramatic untold "people’s history" of the storied event that helped trigger the American Revolution

The story of the Boston Massacre - when on a late winter evening in 1770, British soldiers shot five local men to death - is familiar to generations. But from the very beginning, many accounts have obscured a fascinating truth: the Massacre arose from conflicts that were as personal as they were political.

Professor Serena Zabin draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists. And she reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and children who accompanied these armies. We see these families jostling with Bostonians for living space, finding common cause in the search for a lost child, trading barbs, and sharing baptisms. Becoming, in other words, neighbors. When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street, it was these intensely human, now broken bonds that fueled what quickly became a bitterly fought American Revolution.

Serena Zabin’s The Boston Massacre delivers an indelible new slant on iconic American Revolutionary history.

©2020 Serena Zabin (P)2020 Recorded Books

More massacre less family

This book really focuses on the British point of view and does little to contrast the civilians like crispus attucks, the title was misleading but it was a great historical analysis of the trials of the British soldiers, draws parallels to soldiers of modern times and the sacrifice to be separated from family.

I recommend this title

Absolutely loved it

A must-buy book for anyone interested in the American Revolution. Zabin introduces a new perspective on an old story that is captivating from start to finish.

Worthwhile

The material may be a little narrow to draw general conclusions about what takes place in the years following the Massacre. But it certainly adds greatly to an understanding of environment in Boston on March 5, 1770, and a somewhat different picture than the Revere engraving.

very misleading title

Years ago, I read Hiller Zobel's "The Boston Massacre" (1970) which was brilliant in its destruction of the myth of the massacre and well-researched in its assembly of the actual facts into a coherent story. (That IS the book to get on the Boston Massacre.) When I saw that another author, last name starting with 'Z,' wrote a book on the massacre, I grabbed it. Zabin talks about story lines around the massacre, but there is virtually nothing on the massacre itself. Zabin tells of us women who travel with the British regiments, the eventual rotation of those regiments from one bas to another, and attempts to give us a view of British soldiers, officers, and their wives. But not very coherently. I could not spend more than 15 minutes at a time listening to this as some of the stories border on gossip, not to mention that the stories are spun out too long all of which made me find the book monotonous. Once again, I was quite disappointed by the reader. I listen to a lot of books on a Kindle reader, and I find those readers (I listen to both male and female, British and American accents) more engaging than Andrea Gall here.
Zabin does have a good idea of interpreting the Boston Massacre by viewing it in a different light. But I found the logice of the book's construction to be weak. To be fair, the first 80% of the book does bear fruition in Zabin's view of the trial of the soldiers, but the payoff was not worth wading through all her verbiage. And to be fair again, if the book ahd been titled to emphasize that the book was on relations between soldiers and their wives, and between Bostonians and and an 'occupying' army, I would have come to it with different expectations and I would have been more willing to accpet the book as written.
But if you want a book on the Boston Massacre, get Hiller Zobel's. I can't imagine a better work on the subject.

Mishmash of quotes, not a story

I was excited to learn something new about the Boston Massacre, but the whole book could be summed up by saying, “Some of the people of Boston and some of the troops got close and intermingled. Some didn’t”. Narrator didn’t help the cause with her unpleasing voice.

if could give Zero I would. 5 chpts in & gave up!!

it is HORRIBLE! Dull & boring. 5 chpts in & couldn't listen to another minute.