Boston Globe

THE AMERICAN CHARACTER

Urban-centrism makes a footnote of rural impact

FAR BE it for a born-and-bred country boy to quibble with a Harvard professor, but Edward L. Glaeser's paean to the urban roots of American democracy ("Revolution of urban rebels," Op-ed, July 4) obscures a less ennobling fact about the Revolution: Most militiamen who fought and perished for the colonial cause were conscripted into service from outlying farmlands and rural communities. And of these country men, a full two-thirds were either unsympathetic or indifferent to the war effort, aware no doubt that they, more than their well-heeled city brethren, would shoulder the real costs of attaining freedom for the new republic.

So, yes, let's certainly give a grateful nod toward that "urban network" of radical thinkers and actors who helped craft the pathway toward independence. But let's not allow a facile urban-centrism to reduce the colonial countryside - and its sacrifice of human life - to a mere historical footnote.