The subtitle of this book is “Landmarks of the American Revolution”. Van Doren is an artist, not a historian. But he obviously has an interest in our shared history. He has visited a number of well-known, and several lesser known, sites relevant to the Revolution, and painted his impressions of these sites. With each watercolor picture, he provides some history of the site. In some cases, he describes his journey to the site, which might be helpful for some of the ones that are not as well known, or commonly visited.
When possible, he seems to work with either professional tour guides, or people working at the sites. Most of these sites are National Monuments, or at least have a local organization dedicated to their maintenance. Some have been taken care of since the 1700’s; a few have been rebuilt. The range of places he visited is broad, from battlegrounds and battle monuments, to places where the revolution was planned, to a house where a peace deal was offered (and rejected). Quite a few I had never heard of before.
The historical vignettes are short, but somewhat disconnected. They do tell you exactly why these sites were important. Van Doren does have a timeline of events at the back of the book, but the chapters themselves do not seem to be in any particular order. Which is kind of fun; you never know what you will find next. Van Doren includes sites that commemorate lesser known figures in the Revolution, such as Henry Knox. But there are several “George Washington slept here” type locations as well.
If this was your family, how would you research them? If you have thought about visiting some of the locations that figured in our Revolution, you might find this book interesting. There are a couple of maps in the appendix that will give you the general idea of where most of these sites are. Of course, they are all toward the East Coast. Some are off the beaten path, which might be more interesting than visiting the better known locations. If you happen to live near any of the sites mentioned, you should definitely check it out.