Showing titles in Revolution & Founding

The Age of Atlantic Revolution was a defining moment in western history. Our understanding of rights, of what makes the individual an individual, of how to define a citizen versus a subject, of what states should or should not do, of how labor, politics, and trade would be organized, of the relationship between the church and the state, and of our attachment to the nation all derive from this period (c. 1750-1850).

From Alan Gaff, author of the highly acclaimed Bayonets in the Wilderness, comes the real story of this stunning defeat against the Native American nations in the Northwest Territory. In three hours on the morning of November 4, 1791, General Arthur St. Clair lost one half of his soldiers as well as his reputation.

In Madison’s Militia, Carl T. Bogus illuminates why James Madison and the First Congress included the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights. Linking together dramatic accounts of slave uprisings and electric debates over whether the Constitution should be ratified, Bogus shows that—contrary to conventional wisdom—the fitting symbol of the Second Amendment is not the musket in the hands of the minuteman on Lexington Green but the musket wielded by a slave patrol member in the South.

New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? We have long needed a history of the founding that fully includes Black Americans in the Revolutionary protests, the war, and the debates over slavery and freedom that followed. We now have that history in Edward J. Larson's insightful synthesis of the founding.

Our Flag Was Still There details the improbable two-hundred-year journey of the original Star-Spangled Banner—from Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key first saw it, to the Smithsonian—and the enduring family who defended, kept, hid, and ultimately donated the most famous flag in American history. Tom McMillan tells a story as no one has before. Digging deep into the archives of Fort McHenry and the Smithsonian, McMillan follows the flag on an often-perilous journey through three centuries.

As Ben experimented, people peppered him with questions about electricity. Distracted, Ben was still holding the ends of two bare wires when the other ends touched the Leyden jars. A massive charge knocked him to the ground. When he clambered to his feet, he had to admit that his guests appeared to have enjoyed watching him get electrocuted. Benjamin Franklin's life never lacked excitement and intrigue. As a printer, writer, scientist, inventor, and American statesman, this spirited Philadelphia resident continually sought to improve himself and the world he lived in.

That a new history of the United States is needed, extending from the discovery down to the present time hardly needs a statement. No such comprehensive work by a competent writer is now in existence. Individual writers have treated only limited chronological fields. Meantime there, is a rapid increase of published sources and of serviceable monographs based on material hitherto unused. On the one side, there is a necessity for an intelligent summarizing of the present knowledge of American history by trained specialists; on the other hand, there is a need for a complete work.

This is a public domain autobiography of Martha Washington with a fresh new foreword about her role as the first lady. As a wife and mother, Martha Washington suffered great tragedy and made many personal sacrifices, yet she maintained her role with dignity regardless, and she made many personal sacrifices for the sake of the nation.

In the years following the Revolutionary War, the young American nation was in a state of chaos. Citizens pleaded with government leaders to reorganize local infrastructures and heighten regulations, but economic turmoil, Native American warfare, and political unrest persisted. By 1784, one group of North Carolina frontiersmen could no longer stand the unresponsiveness of state leaders to their growing demands. This ambitious coalition of Tennessee Valley citizens declared their region independent from North Carolina, forming the state of Franklin.

Women of the American Revolution explores the trials of war and daily life for women in the United States during the War of Independence. What challenges were caused by the division within communities as some stayed loyal to the king and others became patriots? How much choice did women have as their loyalties were assumed to be that of their husbands or fathers? The lives of women of the American Revolution will be examined through an intimate look at some significant women of the era.

An independent nation now exists forged in the fires of battle and founded upon lofty principles. But treaties with indigenous people have been broken, women had no rights, and slavery was still legal. Can integrity be legislated? Can equality be lived? Can truth be heard? Can individual rights be secured? These questions are answered in A Voice for the People.

Instant New York Times Bestseller | Narrated by author Bret Baier #1 New York Times bestselling author Bret Baier reveals how George Washington saved the Constitution–and the American experiment "To Rescue The Constitution is a masterful exploration of the electrifying struggle to unite a...

Summer 1787. After a long, difficult, and devastating war for independence was won, the Articles of Confederation–our first form of government–was falling apart at the seams. Controversy and dissention reigned supreme as Congress convened at Independence Hall. Fiery passions, ablaze with visions of a new form of government “by and for the people,” hovered on the horizon. Would the sun of a New Age sink under a cloud of doubt and dissention? Or would it represent the dawn of a new era breaking over the world as A Rising Sun.

Eric A. Shelman was born in Fort Worth, Texas, so he's not sure how much more American someone can be. He grew up in the '60s, with memories of community parades, men and women on horseback carrying flags of his home state of Texas and the United States, and all the riders proudly wearing red, white, and blue. Patriotic music played in the background while onlookers ate hot dogs and cotton candy cheering on the participants.

Debates over paper money and banking are older than the United States of America itself. Eighteenth and 19th century Americans were deeply ambivalent about paper money and central banks, and political fights over these issues were among the bitterest in American history. In fact, controversies over the country’s central bank birthed both the first (1792-1824) and second (1828-1852) party systems. Frequently, policymakers crafted responses to the crisis at hand, and as a result, they implemented policies that were inadequate to the challenges the country faced in the future.

Although the separate history of the commonwealths is, for the most part, merged into that of the nation, the national history grows steadily more complex … The special function of this volume in the American Nation series is to describe the foundations of the present American party system and its application to the extremely difficult problems of that time …

Award-winning historian Cassandra A. Good shows how the outspoken stepgrandchildren of George Washington played an overlooked but important role in the development of American society and politics from the Revolution to the Civil War. While it’s widely known in America that George and Martha...

George Washington—hero of the French and Indian War, commander in chief of the Continental Army, and first president of the United States—died on December 14, 1799. But what do we really know about Washington as an upper-class man?

In this provocative biography, Mary Sarah Bilder looks to the Age of the Constitution to investigate the rise of a radical new idea in the English-speaking world: female genius. Bilder finds the perfect exemplar of this phenomenon in Eliza Harriot Barons O'Connor. Female Genius reconstructs Eliza Harriot's transatlantic life, paying particular attention to her lectures and the academies she founded, inspiring countless young American women to consider a college education and a role in the political forum. 

No more difficult task can be found in the twenty-six volumes of The American Nation than to write a fresh and original account of the Revolution...