The Other New York is a series of essays that survey the circumstances of the rest of the colony of New York outside of New York City during the American Revolution. Each essay, except one, focuses on the issues and events within a single county. The other essay combines three Central Hudson Valley counties because their circumstances and dynamics were similar. The essays clearly demonstrate the variety of issues and priorities that divided and often distracted various regions of the colony of New York during the Revolutionary period.
The essays work as surveys giving basic information about factions and motives within each county. In some cases, factions were largely divided along religious affiliation. In some counties, class divisions were a major factor with many in the lower classes looking at a change in government as a opportunity to improve class standing. The frontier counties had varying issues such as Indian alliances and who had granted the land patants. The population of Charlotte County was often more concerned with whose land patents (New York's or New Hampshire's) would be recognized as the legitimate patents.
The essays each briefly cover the individual issues of counties over the twenty-five years of the Revolutionary period, although some essays are more tightly focused on the ten to twelve years of violence, war and uneasy peace. The essays each supply several pages of notes for continued research into that county's circumstances. The notes often include recommended texts that explore specific aspects (such as religious or cultural factions) is much greater detail. The book is all too short in content in that the essays are rich with content and hint at a much greater level of knowledge and research on the part of the authors. The book is nonetheless a good reference tool because of the number of notes, which cite many highly regionalized and less well-known sources.
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