The Battle of Brooklyn, 1776

Gallagher, a Brooklyn-based forensic historian, here addresses an important subject. Brooklyn, once known as Long Island, constituted one of the American Revolution's first, largest and most neglected actions. His thesis-that the battle's style reflected the Revolution's nature as ``democratic warfare,'' freed from conventional restrictions-is provocative. However, Gallagher undermines his case by dawdling in the effort to establish background information for the battle and armies; his account of real warfare is anticlimactic. Moreover, informed readers will wince at his factual errors: the British army, for example, possessed no green-coated rifle regiment in 1776. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Dec.)