Revolutionary Period (1775 1800) category: 1601 books

When the American Revolution began, the colonial troops had little hope of matching His Majesty’s highly trained, experienced British and German legions in confrontational battle. Indeed, Washington’s army suffered defeat after defeat in the first few years of the war, fighting bravely but mainly...

From the bestselling author of The Invention of Nature, a fascinating look at the Founding Fathers like none you've seen before. For the Founding Fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions: a conjoined interest as deeply ingrained in their characters as the battle for...

“An engaging piece of historical detective work and narrative craft.” —Chicago Tribune At a time when America’s founding principles are being debated as never before, Russell Shorto looks back to the era in which those principles were forged. In Revolution Song, Shorto weaves the lives...

Despite his less-than-promising beginnings as the only key Founding Father not born and raised on American soil, Hamilton was one of the best and brightest of his generation. His notoriety has rested almost entirely on his role as Secretary of the Treasury in Washington's administration, yet few realize...

History enthusiasts and admirers of Team of Rivals will rejoice in this magisterial account of the extraordinary Americans who served the nation’s first chief executive: Together, they created the presidency for a country disgusted by crowns and the people who would wear them. In 1789, as...

Only 21 at the start of the America's Revolutionary War, Benjamin Tallmadge was an enthusiastic patriot. Appointed by George Washington to organize intelligence in British-occupied New York, Tallmadge formed the famous Culper Spy Ring, whom he mentions in this volume without giving names. Scenes of...

This authoritative Bantam Classic edition presents readers with a wide-ranging selection of Benjamin Franklin’s most important writings, illuminating the complex and appealing character of this quintessential American who rose to fame as a publisher, inventor, educator, bon vivant, and statesman. Here...

We commonly think of the American Revolution as simply the war for independence from British colonial rule. But, of course, that independence actually applied to only a portion of the American population—African Americans would still be bound in slavery for nearly another century. Alan Gilbert asks...

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Benjamin Franklin tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Walter Isaacson’s book.   Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.   This...

The story of an ambitious family at the forefront of the great middle-class land grab that shaped early American capitalism American Aristocrats is a multigenerational biography of the Andersons of Kentucky, a family of strivers who passionately believed in the promise of America. Beginning...

Martha Jeffersonis the first and only biography of Thomas Jefferson’s greatest love and true kindred spirit, who died an untimely death at the young age of thirty-three in 1782. Drawing on a wealth of newly probed sources—including family letters, documents, and the handwritten notes left by Jefferson’s...

In Light Horse Harry Lee, Charles Royster tells the story of a man whose career embodies the visionary promises that inspired the American Revolution, as well as the inability of the revolutionary generation to put all its ideals into practice.   The man is Henry Lee—soldier (nicknamed “Light-Horse...

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to a crowd gathered outside the Pennsylvania State House. It was engrossed on vellum later in the month, and delegates began signing the finely penned document in early August. The man who read the Declaration and later embossed it—the...

No event in American history was more pivotal-or more furiously contested-than Congress's decision to declare independence in July 1776. Even months after American blood had been shed at Lexington and Concord, many colonists remained loyal to Britain. John Adams, a leader of the revolutionary effort,...