Although best known as the last civilian royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson also deserves to be remembered as the author of a history of that colony. Hutchinson's devotion to objectivity and his reliance on original sources make his three-volume History of Massachusetts-Bay a solid work of scholarship. In addition, the History is a reflection of the man and his times. Hutchinson was an austere public figure imbued with many of the ideas of the Enlightenment. The History focuses on political affairs nearly to the exclusion of other matters, avoids the use of adjectives and figures of speech that might enliven the prose, and celebrates reason as the guiding principle of life. Hutchinson began the work during the controversies that led to the American Revolution. He used the History initially to try to dampen those controversies and ultimately to defend his own actions during them.

Hutchinson came from...