Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution
A vivid, deeply researched portrait of Angelica Schuyler Church, a dynamic yet overlooked figure of the American Revolution ... Beer skillfully reconstructs Church’s voice and agency, situating her story within the complex intersections of gender, class, race, and power. This engaging biography offers both historical depth and narrative clarity ... A compelling, richly contextualized portrait of a woman whose life reframes and challenges familiar Revolutionary War narratives. A valuable addition to biography and history collections.
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Beer relies heavily on letters written by Angelica, to Angelica, about Angelica. And while the letters are interesting, they shed only so much light on her story—and frankly, many of those letters come from the men in her life, not from her ... Beer often describes what Angelica 'likely' thought or did, given the limitations of the documents available to her. I wanted more—more of her words, more portraits of Angelica and the people in her life (there’s only one small slice of a portrait on the cover, I had to search online to see the full portrait of Angelica with baby Elizabeth and another woman)... But for readers whose only knowledge of her comes from Hamilton, this biography may tell us as much as we’ll ever know about this notable woman.
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A brisk and vivid history ... Beer draws on abundant archival sources to portray a shrewd, observant woman whose perspective affords a fresh look at her times.
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