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The Ride : Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America
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Overview
USA Today Bestseller
Timed for the 250th anniversary of America's revolution and founding: Paul Revere's heroic ride, newly told with fresh research into little-known aspects of the story Americans have heard since childhood but hardly understoodOn April 18, 1775, a Boston-based silversmith, engraver, and anti-British political operative named Paul Revere set out on a borrowed horse to fulfill a dangerous but crucial mission: to alert American colonists of advancing British troops, which would seek to crush their nascent revolt. Revere was not the only rider that night, and indeed, he had completed at least 18 previous rides across New England and other colonies, disseminating intelligence about British movements. But this ride was like no other, and its consequences in the months and years to come--as the American Revolution morphed from isolated skirmishes to a full-fledged war--became one of our founding legends. In The Ride, Kostya Kennedy presents a dramatic new narrative of the events of April 18 and 19, 1775, informed by fresh primary and secondary source research into archives, family letters and diaries, contemporary accounts, and more. Kennedy reveals Revere's ride to be more complex than it is usually portrayed--a loosely coordinated series of rides by numerous men, near-disaster, capture by British forces, and finally success. While Revere was central to the ride and its plotting, Kennedy reveals the other men (and, perhaps, a woman with information about the movement of British forces) who helped to set in motion the events that would lead to America's independence. Thrillingly written in a dramatic, unstoppable narrative, The Ride re-tells an essential American story for a new generation of readers.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781250341372
- ISBN-10: 125034137X
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press
- Publish Date: March 2025
- Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.85 pounds
- Page Count: 304
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Journalist and author Kostya Kennedy is best known for his books about sports, including True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson and Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. With The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America, Kennedy brings his clear prose and flair for play-by-play storytelling to unravel fact from legend in one of the best-known stories in American history: the midnight ride of Paul Revere. Timed just ahead of the 2026 semiquincentennial, Kennedy’s examination of American hero Paul Revere is informative, thoughtful and a welcome reminder that the fledgling nation’s independence was not at all guaranteed.
Kennedy sets the stage by reminding us of the stakes in mid-April of 1775, asking readers to imagine what might have happened had Revere (and other midnight riders as well) not spread the word that British redcoats had marched out of Boston in search of munitions stored at Concord: “If not for that first morning of battle—of impudent, plucky, stunning, and world-shifting Patriot success—would the rebelling American army have continued to mobilize so confidently?”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem immortalized Revere’s ride; for many of us, that’s where our knowledge begins and ends. Kennedy takes time to delve behind the myth to paint an intimate portrait of Revere himself, a silversmith and dedicated revolutionary messenger. Enhanced by photographs and period illustrations, Kennedy’s brisk, well-researched narrative provides helpful historical context as well as information about other early revolutionaries including Revere’s friend, the underappreciated Dr. Joseph Warren, who sent both Revere and rider William Dawes out the night of April 18, 1775. (Speaking of unsung figures, Kennedy also includes mention of rider Samuel Prescott and an entire chapter on Dawes.)
From the distance of 250 years, it’s easy to forget these early patriots were real men and women, embarking on a dangerous, often controversial and uncertain enterprise. Kennedy closes with reminders that this history lives on—in places and in people. He describes climbing the steeple chamber at Boston’s Old North Church and meeting Paul Revere III, whose late father was stopped for speeding in Lexington one April night in the 1960s but did not get a ticket.
In the years to come, there will be many books about the American Revolution. But readers can’t go wrong beginning with The Ride, which would make a great family read-aloud or audio listen. Because, in a way, it all began that night with Paul Revere.
Journalist and author Kostya Kennedy is best known for his books about sports, including True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson and Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. With The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America, Kennedy brings his clear prose and flair for play-by-play storytelling to unravel fact from legend in one of the best-known stories in American history: the midnight ride of Paul Revere. Timed just ahead of the 2026 semiquincentennial, Kennedy’s examination of American hero Paul Revere is informative, thoughtful and a welcome reminder that the fledgling nation’s independence was not at all guaranteed.
Kennedy sets the stage by reminding us of the stakes in mid-April of 1775, asking readers to imagine what might have happened had Revere (and other midnight riders as well) not spread the word that British redcoats had marched out of Boston in search of munitions stored at Concord: “If not for that first morning of battle—of impudent, plucky, stunning, and world-shifting Patriot success—would the rebelling American army have continued to mobilize so confidently?”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem immortalized Revere’s ride; for many of us, that’s where our knowledge begins and ends. Kennedy takes time to delve behind the myth to paint an intimate portrait of Revere himself, a silversmith and dedicated revolutionary messenger. Enhanced by photographs and period illustrations, Kennedy’s brisk, well-researched narrative provides helpful historical context as well as information about other early revolutionaries including Revere’s friend, the underappreciated Dr. Joseph Warren, who sent both Revere and rider William Dawes out the night of April 18, 1775. (Speaking of unsung figures, Kennedy also includes mention of rider Samuel Prescott and an entire chapter on Dawes.)
From the distance of 250 years, it’s easy to forget these early patriots were real men and women, embarking on a dangerous, often controversial and uncertain enterprise. Kennedy closes with reminders that this history lives on—in places and in people. He describes climbing the steeple chamber at Boston’s Old North Church and meeting Paul Revere III, whose late father was stopped for speeding in Lexington one April night in the 1960s but did not get a ticket.
In the years to come, there will be many books about the American Revolution. But readers can’t go wrong beginning with The Ride, which would make a great family read-aloud or audio listen. Because, in a way, it all began that night with Paul Revere.