Some have called American Tempest a book of revisionist history. But I don’t think so. It’s contrarian history to be sure, but not revisionist.

Unger no doubt has an agenda. But he has meticulously researched the famous Boston Tea Party and brought out key points you didn’t read in your American Civics class. He then compares that to the contemporary Tea Party efforts.

For instance, he claims that the Boston Tea Party was largely a rebellion of upper class merchants and wealthy men who used populist themes to incite a rebellion. He claims that the success of the rebellion was largely lost for the commoner as those wealthy upper class folks ended up imposing steep taxes anyway. He claims that the tax on tea was minimal and would’ve had little impact on Americans, and that taxes were historically quite low when the rebellion began.

All of which is true. So it becomes a book that you want to wrestle with and resolve. It’s not the nice, neat narrative that we were weaned on in American history classes. It’s not about the evil English and their outrageous taxes. It’s not about the little guy standing up for his or her rights and creating the American myth of the self-reliant worker. It’s not about unfair laws that stripped American dignity.

Instead, Unger focuses on Samuel Adams and John Hancock in particular. The former was poorer but very influential, and had a team of ruffians and others willing to go all out for American independence. Hancock was originally more reluctant to break with the King, but through a combination of greed and opportunity he jumped at the chance to eliminate a host of laws that harmed his mercantile business.

Is that believable? Well, maybe. There’s a lot of truth in that. And the parallels to some tea party activists is worth contemplating. I enjoyed this book because it gave me something to think about. Not necessarily to agree with, but to contemplate. History books that do this are few and far between. So I recommend the book … just don’t pelt me with tea bags.