Showing titles in Revolution & Founding

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Travels with George . . . is quintessential Philbrick—a lively, courageous, and masterful achievement.” —The Boston Globe Does George Washington still matter? Bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington’s unique contribution to the forging of...

Woody Holton upends what we think we know of the Constitution's origins by telling the history of the average Americans who challenged the framers of the Constitution and forced on them the revisions that produced the document we now venerate.  

America’s beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of the year of our nation’s birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a...

In late December 1776, the American War of Independence appeared to be on its last legs. General George Washington's continental forces had been reduced to a shadow of their former strength, and the British Army had chased them across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, and George Washington responded to this crisis with astonishing audacity. On Christmas night 1776, he recrossed the Delaware as a nor'easter churned up the coast, burying his small detachment under howling sheets of snow and ice.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN NPR CONCIERGE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “In her form-shattering and myth-crushing book….Coe examines myths with mirth, and writes history with humor… [You Never Forget Your First] is an accessible look at a president who always finishes in the first...

During the summer of 1776, a British incursion from Canada loomed. In response, citizen soldiers of the newly independent nation mounted a heroic defense. Patriots constructed a small fleet of gunboats on Lake Champlain in northern New York and confronted the Royal Navy in a desperate three-day battle near Valcour Island. Their effort surprised the arrogant British and forced the enemy to call off their invasion.

In 1740, New England experienced a social earthquake in the figure of a 21-year-old preacher. People were abuzz with his stunning oratory, his colorful theatrics, and his almost ungodly sense of power and presence. When George Whitefield arrived in the small towns and hamlets that made up the American colonies, he proved to be much more than anything the residents could have expected. His reputation and growing legend had been built on his brilliant speeches and frightening tirades, and his fame now engulfed what would become America.

The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation". Many on the left contend that the Founders were secular or Deist and that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state throughout the land. None of these claims are true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman.

An intellectual biography of James Madison, arguing that he invented American politics as we know it  How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history; his political trajectory seems almost intentionally...

At the beginning of 1776, virtually no one in the colonies was advocating independence: Americans based their grievances against Parliament on their rights as British subjects. By the end of 1776, independence was on every patriot's lips. The many tyrannies of a king had made an independent republic necessary. In Declaring Independence, Edward J. Larson gives us a compact, insightful history of that pivotal year.

A compelling, intimate portrait of John Hancock, going beyond the flamboyant signature to reveal the pivotal role that he had in the American Revolution A contemporary of Samuel Adams, John Adams, George Washington, and the Marquis de Lafayette, Hancock had a list of contacts that read like a...

A rich and illuminating biography of America’s forgotten Founding Father, the patriot physician and major general who fomented rebellion and died heroically at the battle of Bunker Hill on the brink of revolution Little has been known of one of the most important figures in early American...

A vivid account of leadership focusing on the first four Virginia presidents--George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe--from the bestselling historian and author of James Madison. From a small expanse of land on the North American continent came four of the nation's...

Jefferson was a soft-spoken man who recoiled from direct conflict, yet a master puppeteer in politics. Whenever he left Monticello, where he could control his environment, he suffered debilitating headaches that plagued him for decades, until he finally retired from public life. So, what did it feel like to be Thomas Jefferson? Burstein explains the decision to take as his mistress Sally Hemings, the enslaved half-sister of his late wife, who bore him six children, none of whom he acknowledged.

Explore the captivating lives of the Founding Fathers. Eight captivating manuscripts in one audiobook. So if you want to learn more about the life of Founding Fathers, get this audiobook now!

From the author of Unlikely Allies and Indivisible comes the remarkable story of John Marshall who, as chief justice, statesman, and diplomat, played a pivotal role in the founding of the United States. No member of America's Founding Generation had a greater impact on the Constitution and the...

Part biography, part travelogue, part self-help, New York Times bestselling author Eric Weiner follows in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, mining his life for inspiration and practical lessons for living a purposeful and virtuous life. Ben Franklin lingers in our lives and in our imaginations...

In Washington's Circle, David and Jeanne Heidler introduce not just the president but the group of extraordinary men who advised him. The familiar names are here, like the often irked and occasionally irksome John Adams, the scheming Alexander Hamilton, and the prodigiously talented James "Jemmy" Madison, but so are the lesser known Edmund Randolph, John Jay, and Gouverneur Morris. Washington's choices of whom to listen to, for better and sometimes worse, were as consequential as the advice his cabinet gave.

From bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands, a revelatory history of the shocking emergence of vicious political division at the birth of the United States. To the framers of the Constitution, political parties were a fatal threat to republican virtues. They had suffered...

It's time to step back into history and learn about the American Revolution. In this new and captivating book, you’ll discover what made the American Revolution so special and how it still influences us today.