Tyrants and Rogues

An acclaimed historian presents a sweeping new look at the Declaration of Independence, focusing not on the lofty principles of the preamble but on the list of grievances levelled against King George III. For the 250 years since it was written and proclaimed to the world, the Declaration of Independence, and the immortal words of its preamble—“all men are created equal,” “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—have animated those striving for freedom in the United States, and around the world. Yet as historian Robert G. Parkinson shows in this revelatory work, the men who wrote the Declaration did not view the preamble as the important part; rather, it was the list of twenty-seven grievances that they spent their time laboring over, in those hot summer days. The grievances identified the tyrants and rogues who oppressed the colonists with their attacks on colonial assemblies and courtrooms throughout the imperial crisis, and eventually waged war on them, inflamed slave revolts, forced them to fight against their countrymen, and more. Parkinson gives us the Declaration anew—and in the process opens up an expansive view of the contingency of the Revolutionary moment, showing that the patriots were not so much philosophers as they were politicians and war-makers.