Showing titles in Revolution & Founding

Ranging from the earliest Native American settlers to the presidency of Barack Obama, this Very Short Introduction offers an illuminating account of politics, diplomacy, and war as well as the full spectrum of social, cultural, and scientific developments that shaped our country.

The Irish played a huge role in the American Revolution, not just on the battlefield but also in the field hospitals and in the framing of the Declaration of Independence. Niall O'Dowd, author of Lincoln and the Irish and A New Ireland, takes listeners on a journey into the unexplored contributions of the Irish in the American Revolution and behind the scenes of the relationships of some of those men and women with the first president of the United States.

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...

This volume will showcase the international grand design led by Benjamin Franklin that manifested in the establishment of the American republic and trace the next 130 years of world history as the USA was targeted for destruction by oligarchical forces from London and also from within leading up to the assassination of William McKinley in 1901.

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most pivotal documents in Western history, along with the Magna Carta and Emancipation Proclamation. Almost 250 years after the founding fathers signed the Declaration and heralded the birth of the United States, the story of how America overthrew the British is as meaningful today as when the ink was still wet on the page.

This prize-winning and critically acclaimed history uses foreign relations as the lens through which to tell the story of America's dramatic rise from 13 disparate colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast to the world's greatest superpower.

Many Americans know that our nation’s founders drew inspiration from the political systems of ancient Rome and Greece. But what exactly were these influences? And did they shape the United States in far-reaching ways? In these 24 compelling lectures, Professor Winterer takes you on a journey into the thought and actions of the American revolutionaries, showing how classical antiquity shaped every aspect of the revolutionary and founding era.

What lights the spark that ignites a revolution? Lost in the story of America’s path to independence is the tumultuous nature of that nation’s origins: the interplay of ideologies and personalities that provoked a group of merchants, farmers, artisans, and sailors to take up arms in pursuit of liberty.... A city of 15,000 inhabitants packed onto a land-connected island a little over one square mile, Boston in 1775 was also a city occupied by the British.

The Declaration of Independence was a history-changing document, calling for a new form of government resting on a radical philosophical framework. It has inspired over 100 other declarations of independence over the last 250 years. In these 12 lectures, Professor Bell offers you far-reaching reflections on the meaning, the power, and the influence of the Declaration.

In this gripping chronicle of America's struggle for independence, award-winning historian John Ferling transports listeners to the grim realities of that war, capturing an eight-year conflict filled with heroism, suffering, cowardice, betrayal, and fierce dedication. As Ferling demonstrates, it was a war that America came much closer to losing than is now usually remembered. General George Washington put it best when he said that the American victory was "little short of a standing miracle."

This classic work explains the evolution of American political thought from the Declaration of Independence to the ratification of the Constitution. In so doing, it greatly illuminates the origins of the present American political system. 

In August 1776, a little over a month after the Continental Congress had formally declared independence from Britain, the revolution was on the verge of a sudden and disastrous end. General George Washington found his troops outmanned and outmaneuvered at the Battle of Brooklyn, and it looked like there was no escape. But thanks to a series of desperate rear-guard attacks by a single heroic regiment, famously known as the Immortal 400, Washington was able to evacuate his men, and the nascent Continental Army lived to fight another day.

Did a scandalous love affair cost the British Empire the American Revolutionary War? In Snug As A Flea: Lust, Failure & Time in the American Revolutionary War, author Roger Schatz unveils one of the most intriguing and consequential sidebars of American history. General William Howe was a formidable British Commander-In-Chief tasked with crushing the American rebellion. But instead of delivering the final blow to George Washington's vulnerable Continental Army, Howe repeatedly stalled. Why?

The surprising story of how the plain black suit became a symbol of masculinity, democracy, and modernity. How did black suits become so ubiquitous? Why has men's business clothing been so plain for the last 250 years? How did a style adopted by the Founding Fathers to differentiate themselves...

In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny.

This revelatory biography from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author explores the story of the most essential Founding Father—the one who stood behind the change that sparked the American Revolution. “A glorious book that is as entertaining as it is vitally important.” —Ron Chernow, #1 New...

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...

The first book ever to tell the complete story of the Declaration of Independence—from its drafting by Thomas Jefferson to its enshrinement in the National Archives—charting the many lives of a document that was neglected, mistreated, and only gradually became a national relic, uniting...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling biography of America’s founding father and second president that was the basis for the acclaimed HBO series, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey...

The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically chronicles his hilarious adventures in attempting to follow the original meaning of the Constitution, as he searches for answers to one of the most pressing issues of our time: How should we interpret America’s foundational...