Ten Tea Parties

In a few days Alan Brinkley is coming to speak to your AP US students (he wrote our textbook).  My question for him is how and why does he decide what is history.  Take the new book (disclaimer, I received it free from the publisher)  Ten Tea Parties which comes out in a few weeks.  The book discussed fifteen "tea parties," one of which actually burned the ship of tea, several which collected the tea and stored it away, another which had their colonists dress as Native Americans and throw the tea overboard (sound familiar)?  Indeed one "party" had Redcoats kill an American colonist and even the Boston group copied their resolved from Sons of Liberty in Philadelphia who had their own "party" three days after the one in Bean Town.  In short, it's a quick short, enjoyable read and it begs the question why do we only remember Boston?

While I am on it, my wife read another book that was sent to me Destiny of the Republic about Garfield, his killer and the incompetent doctors who botched his possible recovery.  My wife who normally only reads fiction found it enthralling as did the NYTimes who put it on their annual "best of"books of 2011.