History can sometimes read like a steady procession of inevitable incidents. Not in Moore’s rollicking account ... The book’s compulsive readability is a tribute to Moore’s skill at cracking open the pre-revolutionary period ... Though there are fleeting references to "the traumas and antagonisms of our current age," Moore’s enthusiasm for Georgian culture and politics inhibits him from drawing the sort of comparison between then and now that one could.
Absorbing ... Moore has a keen eye for the sort of eloquent detail that enlivens biography ... Moore makes a plausible case for [Catherine Macaulay] as scholar and agitator, but treats her pretty briskly.
In vivid prose, Moore demonstrates why Franklin was so energized by his travels to London ... Not everyone was included in [the phrase's] promise, a shortcoming the author alludes to but doesn’t dwell upon ... Still, in artfully tracing its history, he has helped explain why "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" has endured as an ideal for nearly 250 years.
Moore offers ample proof that the revolution in America had British roots ... For all that, the book is a bit overstuffed and rambling ... But some of the minutiae Moore provides is fascinating.
A rich and immersive intellectual history ... The portrait of Franklin and Strahan’s relationship is especially well done, and Moore’s fluid prose is infused with the "boisterous" excitement of the era.
