When read as entertainment, stories about the establishment of America, our miraculous founding as a nation, and our development as the greatest nation in all recorded history, are more interesting than most fiction ever written. Readers of this book will learn about seventy-six important nation-building events and the character of the people involved in making them happen from which came the term "American Exceptionalism." It's important that all Americans understand how their country is ...

The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically acclaimed volume--a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize--offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic. Beginning with the French and Indian War and continuing to the election of George Washington as first president, Robert Middlekauff offers a panoramic history of the conflict between England and America, highlighting the drama and anguish of the col...

Here is a brisk, accessible, and vivid introduction to arguably the most important event in the history of the United States--the American Revolution. Between 1760 and 1800, the American people cast off British rule to create a new nation and a radically new form of government based on the idea that people have the right to govern themselves. In this lively account, Robert Allison provides a cohesive synthesis of the military, diplomatic, political, social, and intellectual aspects of the ...

The New York Times bestselling author of God’s Hand on America reveals that what the Founders always believed has been proven true: that America’s rise to prosperity and power, from the writing of the Constitution to the Civil War, unfolded according to a master plan.THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MOTION PICTURE EXPERIENCE THE AMERICAN MIRACLE: OUR NATION IS NO ACCIDENT“Absolutely spectacular. The stories are gen...

In this spellbinding new history, David Goldfield offers the firstmajor new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson'sBattle Cry of Freedom. Where past scholars have limned the waras a triumph of freedom, Goldfield sees it as America's greatestfailure: the result of a breakdown caused by the infusion of evangelicalreligion into the public sphere. As the Second GreatAwakening surgedthrough America, political questions be...

America, how well do you know your history?Who quelled a coup d'etat by putting on a pair of reading glasses?Which U.S. senator was nearly caned to death on the Senate floor?Which first lady refused to serve alcohol in the White House?What famous inventor was called to find the assassin's bullet in President Garfield's back?Which successful candidate for president insisted on telling the truth about his sex sca...

A groundbreaking narrative—a historical political thriller—that explores the role of a group of grassroots radicals in the American Revolution—"Fresh, fascinating, and compulsively readable. This book is a veritable treat for Revolutionary War buffs" (Jay Winik, New York Times– bestselling author of April 1865 and The Great Upheaval ).

"A scholarly, unnerving account of the American Revolution's darker side . . . that introduced a new political order." ― The New YorkerBefore there could be a revolution, there was a rebellion; before patriots, there were insurgents. Challenging and displacing decades of received wisdom, T. H. Breen's strikingly original book explains how ordinary Americans—most of them members of farm families living in small communities—were drawn into a...

In this audacious recasting of the American Revolution, distinguished historian Gary Nash offers a profound new way of thinking about the struggle to create this country, introducing readers to a coalition of patriots from all classes and races of American society. From millennialist preachers to enslaved Africans, disgruntled women to aggrieved Indians, the people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of this country's ...

This award-winning author's portrait of America's first Founding Father is "[a] vivid biography of the Virginia firebrand" ( Wall Street Journal ).Remembered largely for his cry for "liberty or death," Patrick Henry was actually the first (and most colorful) of America's Founding Fathers, who roused his countrymen to fight government tyranny—both British and American. He was the first to call Americans to arms against Brit...

Recommended by the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy as an exemplary informational text. How did compliant colonials with strong ties to Europe get the notion to become an independent nation? Perhaps the seeds of liberty were planted in the 1735 historic courtroom battle for the freedom of the press. Or maybe the French and Indian War did it, when colonists were called "Americans" for the first time by the English, and the great English ar...