The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution, by Alfred F. Young. Beacon Press, 288 pages, $15.00.

Alfred F. Young seeks to illuminate the American Revolution by examining the life of George Robert Twelves Hewes, a rank-and-file tradesman whose name appears with peculiar frequency in early American documents. What led a poor shoemaker to venture into the political arena at such a tumultuous time? Young asks. And how did taking action affect Hewes's life? And more generally, why has Hewes been granted a place in history when the majority of his peers have been forgotten?