Arsonist: The Most Dangerous Man in America

In this landmark work of history, Arsonist reveals the secret role of one man who challenged the foundations of feudalism and instigated the American Revolution. James Otis was disgusted by the anti-democratic feudal structure of society and threatened to set it all "in a flame" though, he confessed, he too would likely be consumed in the fire. By the winter of 1760, this provincial bourgeoisie, one of the wealthiest and most intelligent men in the British colonies, had become fully radicalized. That his words - a promise and a prophecy - came to full fruition and his predictions about the province and his own life were entirely accurate would be unbelievable if it didn't actually happen. After an analysis of colonial political, social, legal and religious evolution prior to Otis's threat, Arsonist provides a detailed, lively illumination of the issues and personalities involved in overthrowing the local government of the world's greatest empire. A group of largely forgotten men - Otis, Sam Adams, Oxenbridge Thacher, Jonathan Mayhew, Thomas Cushing, Patrick Henry - conceived the new country, after which men such as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton midwifed it. The conception of the new nation, so vital yet so ignored, occurred in the violent though fertile grounds of Boston and Virginia in the 1760s. And no one was so instrumental to that conception as James Otis, Jr., the forgotten infantry soldier who made the general's glory possible.