What lights the spark that ignites a revolution?

Lost in the story of America’s path to independence is the tumultuous nature of that nation’s origins: the interplay of ideologies and personalities that provoked a group of merchants, farmers, artisans and sailors to take up arms in pursuit of liberty....

A city of 15,000 inhabitants packed onto a land-connected island a little over one square mile, Boston in 1775 was also - following a series of incendiary incidents by patriotic citizens and trouble-seeking vigilantes - a city occupied by the British.

In the year following the infamous Tea Party an uneasy peace had reigned, but on 19 April 1775 violence erupted, with skirmishes at Lexington and Concord. Two months later, with the city cut off by British forces, these clashes reached a bloody climax in an encounter that would mark the point of no return for the rebellious colonists: the Battle of Bunker Hill.

With a keen sense of the unexplored side of mythic events, Nathaniel Philbrick shines fresh light on this momentous story, revealing new key players and finding unknown sides to familiar ones. The real work of choreographing the rebellion fell to physician Joseph Warren (fated to die at Bunker Hill) while others include Warren’s fiancee - the poet Mercy Scollay; Paul Revere; and a notable new recruit to the revolutionary cause, an elegant Virginian called George Washington. On the British side, reluctant combatant General Thomas Gage was succeeded by the bellicose William Howe, who would lead three charges at Bunker Hill and preside over the claustrophobic cauldron of a city under siege.

Written with passion, insight, even-handedness and the eloquence of a born storyteller, Bunker Hill brings to life the robust, chaotic and blisteringly real origins of America.