The First Salute

Call me a traditionalist, but I think it is reasonable to assume that a book promising to be about the American Revolution, even one claiming a "fresh approach", should have more than a passing reference to the battle for American independence. Instead, Barbare Tuchman has given us a very scholarly and well-researched discourse on the Dutch and British navies, with an occasional mention of the conflict in the colonies. Ms. Tuchman wants to demonstrate the importance of the Dutch navy, the Dutch's recognition of American vessels, and their willingness to trade with the colonies despite Britain's embargo, on the overall outcome of the war. That is all well and good, but she gets so hopelessly bogged down in detail that the average reader loses focus as she meticulously explores topics such as the history of the "ship of the line" method of naval warfare, complete with irrelevant digressions on earlier British court martials of admirals from the 1740's who deviated from the rigid rules of naval warfare. If you have a unique interest in the conflict between the British and Dutch navies, and the historical context of the American Revolution to that European conflict, than this is the book for you. Otherwise, stick with an excellent book like Robert Leckie's George Washington's War for a gripping, historical, chronological description of the American Revolution, including its major and minor players both here and in England.

Opinions seem to be split on this book, with some readers praising it and others offering, well, not so much praise. I'm a Tuchman fan, so my opinion may not be entirely unbiased, but I thoroughly enjoyed The First Salute. And I can, and will, confidently recommend it to other Tuchman fans.
As for the rest of you, I don't think you'll be disappointed if you decide to give it a whirl, but to make up you're mind, let me tell you a little more.
First of all, don't read First Salute if you're looking for a detailed account of Revolutionary events on land or on sea. To use a metaphor from my college days, if this were a history course, it would be a 100 level survey class, not a 300 or 400 level class.
That caveat aside, First Salute is an easy and enjoyable read. True, it may not keep you on the edge of your seat as other reviewers have said, but it will hold your interest. Tuchman, with her usual wit, provides an outstanding overview of the revolution. And despite the generality, Tuchman does shine the spotlight on characters and events that have been overshadowed by more powerful, dynamic people and events.
For instance, the book's title comes from the first official recognition of American sovereignty by the Dutch outpost on St. Eustatius, which fired its guns in salute of an American naval ship flying revolutionary colors.
Tuchman does a wonderful job of telling this and other stories, and most history buffs as well as the majority of Tuchman fans will not be disappointed.

Barbara Tuchman is one of those rare historians who effortlessly switches between the details, such has how to fire a cannon from a ship, to coarser history, such as naval battle strategy to the very general, such as the struggle for World domination. This book deals with the American rebellion and is obligatory reading not just for all Americans, but for anyone interested in history. American Independence was successful of course thanks to the brilliance of General Washington, but his struggle might very well have remained an inconsequential footnote in history had not many events fallen in place in the American's favour.

A tour guide at Williamsburg recommended this as 'essential' reading and since I had enjoyed Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" I was ready for a good book. Into the fourth page describing intricate and, to me, unimportant interrelationships of the Danish royal family I came to the conclusion that at some point in this book's production Tuchman just gave up. So I did to. The chunk I did read was very well researched but I don't need to read a summary of everything Tuchman read in researching this book. The choppy writing and, most importantly, lack of editing wore me out. Is a bad Tuchman worth reading? If you need to know every angle about the American Revolutuion the answer may be 'yes.' But, for me, the answer is 'no', not when there are so many other good books out there.

As always, the writing is superp.
However, as the story went, I was confused as to who was who and where. Only in the last chapters, was I able to keep track of the players. Maybe I need to study history.

A very readable book

I have rarely ever read a more sublime Historical work. Tuchman combines erudition and the ability to handle detail with a lightness of touch which one finds from the better novelists. Tuchman has the ability to move from a particular situation `The first salute` to the general - why the Eastern States of North America decided to revolt against the `relatively` benevolent rule of the British Government. As a colonial, albeit one of a country that stayed in the Empire, and one who is interested in the History of the Royal Navy I found this book a rich source of information on the first Empire and on the tactics that eventually brought the British Navy to the most feared force in the nineteenth century and through this it was able to impose the `Pax Britannica`. As one who has been a student of History. I have rarely found so much detail packaged in such an attractive style. I would recommend all of those who are interested in the actual reasons why the United States sought and won its independence, and why this was beneficial; not only to the USA but also to the British.
I can only reiterate. If you are a student of history in the widest sense. If you are interested in this period; if you want a sublime read, then buy this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this work because it presented a needed view of the American Revolution and how the international context supported our victory. It provides lessons in how the pre-eminent power of an age can be humbled by a coalition of forces, determination, and coincidence. It shows just how fragile the fabric of our revolution's success actually was. This was, however, not up to Ms. Tuchman's usual standard of excellence, but that is still good enough, because the history is good in all but one respect: she depreciates A.T. Mahan while using and espousing his arguments and presentations. By coincidence I had just read Mahan's Influence of Seapower on History before reading The First Salute. It was apparent that in her research Ms. Tuchman also had read Mahan. She incorporated his arguments and yet criticized them out of context. A small flaw in toto, but significant to students of history, especially to those with more than a passing interst in seapower. I would not have noticed this discrepancy had I not just read the other work first. Ms. Tuchman's work is a valuable addition to the body of work on the American Revolution and seapower. It is a "must" read for both sets of lessons: those of history and objectivity in an author. Jay Brown, St. Petersburg, FL

From reading the notes on the cover, I bought the book thinking that it would cover a European perspective on the American Revolution, showing how the war tied into a greater world conflict. While some of that is done, it is not the focus of the book. In fact, I would say that there is little focus, but there are many flaws, which was disappointing given the reputation of the author that is trumpeted on the cover.
There is some focus on the greater naval and colonizing competition between France and Britain surrounding the period of the war, as well as some initial information about conditions in Holland leading up to and surrounding the period. This in itself would be an interesting subject for a book, as long as it was better written than this one. (One note, to me, there was not nearly as much coverage of Dutch involvement, after the first couple of chapters, as another review seemed to imply.)
She, somewhat bizarrely, dedicates a lot of text praising, and defending the honor of Admiral Rodney of the British navy. This includes a chapter of 50 out of the 300 total pages dedicated to the story of his life before the war. This chapter was so boring I pledged to quit the book twice while trying to get through it, when my levels of frustration and boredom surpassed my naturally strong urge to finish any book that I start, only to twice come back to the book after a couple of days, vowing to fight through the muddle.
She includes many of her own, seemingly suspect conclusions, and a lot of information that is almost unrelated to the stated subject of the book. For example, the vagaries of rigging and directing a square-rigger could be an interesting subject, but it's not what I want to read about at length in a book about the American Revolution.
Perhaps the most galling is the total lack of respect given to time. I think that a perceptible timeline is rather important in a book about historical events, but the author's habit of constantly jumping forwards and backwards in time, along with her maddening penchant for stating and then later restating facts and stories, combine to make the timeline practically impossible to discern.
I am not familiar with any of her other books, two of which have apparently won Pulitzer Prizes, but I would honestly expect better written presentation from a decent high school student. I gave it as many as 2 stars only because there is some good information in the book, though it takes a lot of effort to find it all.

Wonderfully, wonderfully written. If only high school texts had Tuchman's easy-going fluency I would have retained a lot more History.
Much of this book, of course, focuses on the war impact on The Dutch and The French. To that end, it truly presents the Revolution as the first world war. Much of her discussion is of the ineptitude of the British leadership at the time. There are excellent profiles, particularly of Sir Rodney.

This is a very good addition to the usual Revolutionary War library inasmuch as it deals with a theater that isn't usually discussed. I found for my first Tuchman book a very enjoyable and informative experience.

Barabra Tuchman's last book is not her best (cannot be compared to the Guns of August or The March of Folly) but it definitely has the Tuchman magic touch and unique historic sense of seeing and conveying the portrayed events in the scope of long term historical affect on mankind.

Characters of the revolution live in this book. Especially informative about some I've never heard of, like the various admirals who botched the war for the Brits. You get to admire George Washington more than ever--how did we ever produce such a man? Tuchman takes you to places you never knew were part of the story, like the various United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the crucial island of St. Eustace where much of the supplies came through.
A great story.

A huge disappointment. I love well-written books about early US history. I found this book to be so poorly written that I began to forget what it was saying before I even finished it. Not recommended.

As a history buff, this book is actually my favorite one on the American Revolution. Definitely not a dry boring history facts book, in fact quite the opposite. It's hard to categorize or classify her writing style, I just enjoy it and the book somehow brings a different perspective and insight into the founding of our grat country. MY HIGHEST RECOMMENDATIONS !!

Reading this book was very interesting. Not many people read their own history interpreted by a foreigner. This book gives a very nice insight in the Dutch history and should be a must for everyone interested in de creation of the US of A and European history around that time. I'm not a historian but very much interested in history itself. The only I regret after reading this book was the fact that Barbara W. Tuchman didn't write my college history books, it would have been much more interesting.
JLA vd Reijden

Tuchman's Guns of August and A Distant Mirror were two definitive works of European history, showing a historian at the full powers of her scholarship and thought. Unfortunately, Ms. Tuchman, in The First Salute, is obviously struggling either with creative exhaustion or simple lack of mastery of her material.

The book is diffuse and a bit chaotic - certainly I understand her premise: in telling the history of the Revolutionary War at sea, and its effect on the world itself, it is certainly necessary to detail preceding events - certainly the war of independence was not an isolated event, but one of a web of changing international conditions. But her scope is so ambitious, and her seeming energy and will to accomplish so weak, that I had the feeling of reading a pile of miscellaneous facts, some of them not particularly well researched, rather than a coherent discussion. Admiral Rodney, despite being sidelined during much of the conflict, is given a outsized portion of this book - we have details of his debts and his preoccupations which tell us why he was not there; relevant to an extent that it illustrates the British mishandling of leadership, but not worth page after page - in a book the scope and size of Distant Mirror, this may have been absorbed; in a book this size this admittedly nicely studied character dominates the book, without dominating the story.

My biggest bone to pick is her, and one that makes me suspect of the worth of many of her conclusions, is her poor knowledge of the 18th century navy - her discussion of conditions is obviously gathered more from hearsay research rather than the index of any historian's effort, checking its accuracy, basically repeating the same myths and half-truths that have been recycled through history books. She views the operation of a man o' war, the existence of which is a central component of this book, from the point of view of 20th century ignorance rather than in the context of 18th century warfare, and draws some startlingly naive conclusions: For instance, she evidently finds all of those ropes and pulleys that sail a warship so confusing that she could never understand them, she thus declares that those aboard would not either - a silly conclusion - every fighting captain, his quarterdeck and able bodied seaman had intimate knowledge of the workings of a sailing ship. One does not carry on worldwide trade not knowing what they are doing. Her discussion of the guns, materiel and fighting conditions is similarly flawed; whereas she understands the suspect "naval intelligence" that led to poorly defended batteries, she falls down, again, when she tries to describe the efficacy of the floating battery, again she cannot seem to keep her 20th century prejudices out of the picture. She similarly has some odd conclusions about shipboard conditions - she didn't do her homework.

This book, I am sorry to say, has all the hallmarks of exhaustion and haste - it is sloppily and hurriedly written and not up to Ms. Tuchman's former excellent standards. Don't let this one put you off reading her other works.

Tuchman was recommended to me-- I will read another of her books to see what the hype is about. This one was dry and slow-going.
Although focusing on naval and European interest in the Revolution, it was still just tough to keep slogging through. I wouldn't recommend it.

This book gave my an insight in the dutch involvement in the american revolution. After reading it I picked up other books on the american and the dutch revolutions, how they compare and how they differ and how the dutch revolution influenced the dutch reaction to the american revoltion. On top of that I found it a pleasant book to read.

As with all Tuchman histories it's readable placing the struggle of the colonies in its historical world wide perspective, telling us of the history never taught with special emphasis on the French contribution. It's alerts us to how close New York came to becoming the London of the 19th century.

I am a lover of history. American, English, and Roman are my favorites. A good history book, brings history alive. This book does not. It is one of the slowest, dull books I've ever tried to read. Mrs. Tuchman should find another line of work, as she has no business pretending to be an author. This book does not rate a review longer than this.