English Revolution Historical

Biographers, journalists, and satirists have long used the subject of sex to define the masculine character and political authority of America's Founding Fathers. Tracing these commentaries on the Revolutionary Era's major political figures in Sex and the Founding Fathers, Thomas Foster shows how continual attempts to reveal the true character of these men instead exposes much more about Americans and American culture than about the Founders themselves.

On January 29, 1774, Benjamin Franklin was called to appear before the Privy Council--a select group of the king's advisors--in an octagonal-shaped room in Whitehall Palace known as the Cockpit. Spurred by jeers and applause from the audience in the Cockpit, Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn unleashed a withering tirade against Franklin. Though Franklin entered the room as a dutiful servant of the British crown, he left as a budding American revolutionary.

In this impressive, well-researched biography, Phelps separates historical fact from long-standing myth to reveal the life of Nathan Hale, a young man who deserves to be remembered as an original American patriot. Using Hale's own journals and letters as well as testimonies from his friends and contemporaries, Phelps depicts the Revolution as it was seen from the ground.

One of the most famous and influential examples of autobiography, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin himself from 1771 to 1790. Franklin's account of his life is divided into four parts, reflecting the different periods at which he wrote them.

On October 7, 1780, American Patriot and Loyalist soldiers battled each other at Kings Mountain, near the border of North and South Carolina. With over one hundred eyewitness accounts, this collection of participant statements from men of both sides includes letters and statements in their original form—the soldiers' own words—unedited and unabridged.

When handsome British viscount Major Lord Peter Tremayne commandeers her home, rebel Kate Grey throws caution to the wind and responds to his seduction. But a spy in her own household steals the military dispatches Tremayne carries, ensuring his disgrace - and implicating Kate in high treason. Months later, having narrowly escaped court martial and hanging, Tremayne returns to decadent, British-occupied Philadelphia with a new assignment - to capture the woman he believes betrayed him.

The award-winning, smash Broadway hit Hamilton: An American Musical continues to captivate sold-out audiences and has sparked unprecedented interest in its historical protagonist. In Hamilton: An American Biography, Tony Williams provides listeners with a concise biography that traces the events and values that enabled Hamilton to rise from his youth as a dispossessed orphan to Revolutionary War hero and Founding Father, a life uniquely shaped by America and who, in turn, contributed to the creation of the American regime of liberty and self-government.

Their ambitions, intrigues, and jealousies shaped the birth of our nation, but they overcame their foibles and imperfections to throw off the chains of tyranny and form a more perfect union. We think of them now as faces on money or statues on pedestals, and, as Burns shows here in luminous prose, thats exactly what they wanted to be. They all possessed astonishing brilliance, expansive egos, and more than just a little vanity.

One of the nation’s most respected historians and a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, H.W. Brands has the rare gift of investing historical narrative with unmatched verve and insight. The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr sheds light on the life of the third vice president of the United States, a man who is perhaps best known for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

From the best-selling author of The Greatest Stories Never Told series, the epic history of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr's illustrious and eccentric political careers and their fateful rivalry. The famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr was the culmination of a story three decades in the making. Rivals unto Death vividly traces their rivalry back to the earliest days of the American Revolution, when Hamilton and Burr - both brilliant, restless, and barely 20 years old - elbowed their way onto the staff of General George Washington.

Benedict Arnold committed treason—for more than two centuries, that's all that most Americans have known about him. Yet Arnold was much more than a turncoat—his achievements during the early years of the Revolutionary War defined him as the most successful soldier of the era. God Save Benedict Arnold tells the gripping story of Arnold's rush of audacious feats—his capture of Fort Ticonderoga, his Maine mountain expedition to attack Quebec, the famous artillery brawl at Valcour Island, the turning-point battle at Saratoga—that laid the groundwork for our independence.

When sixteen-year-old Josie Summers murders her abusive stepfather, she disguises herself in his clothes, only to be discovered by a young Methodist minister who invites her to assist in his ministry. When "Joseph's" true identity is revealed, the guilt-ridden Reverend John Trethman marries her. Shortly afterward, John is kidnapped by British soldiers and forced to minister to their wounded and dead. Josie again dons a man's disguise and joins the North Carolina militia.

The rousing story of Lafayette - “adopted son” of George Washington - and his vital role in the American Revolution. In this long-overdue history of Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette, acclaimed French author Gonzague Saint Bris recounts Lafayette’s invaluable contributions to the American War of Independence and, later, the French Revolution of 1789.

Unlikely Allies is the story of three remarkable historical figures. Silas Deane was a Connecticut merchant and delegate to the Continental Congress as the American colonies struggled to break with England. Caron de Beaumarchais was a successful playwright who wrote The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro.

Boston Harbor, 1775. James Sparhawk, master and commander in the British Navy, knows trouble when he sees it. The ship he's boarded is carrying ammunition and gold into a country on the knife's edge of war. Sparhawk's duty is clear: Confiscate the cargo, impound the vessel, and seize the crew. But when one of the ship's boys turns out to be a lovely girl with a loaded pistol and dead-shot aim, Sparhawk finds himself held hostage aboard a Rebel privateer.

On the eve of the American Revolution, the British army considered the case of a chaplain, Robert Newburgh, who had been accused of having sex with a man. Newburgh's enemies cited his flamboyant appearance, defiance of military authority, and seduction of soldiers as proof of his low character. His opponents claimed that these supposed crimes against nature translated to crimes against the king. In Vicious and Immoral, historian John McCurdy tells this compelling story of male intimacy and provides an unparalleled glimpse inside eighteenth-century perceptions of queerness.

A freak accident, a mysterious portrait and an imaginary friendship take Magda O’Toole on a journey of self-discovery. Her search for answers leads her to Toluca, Mexico, where she meets a handsome Professor, Miguel Villatoro, and encounters the ghostly apparition of a woman long dead. Her desire to reconnect with a childhood friend pulls Magda into the past—it’s 1836 and the Texas Revolution gathers momentum. Trapped and unable to return home, she travels with the Mexican Army deep into enemy territory, witnessing the events of the war.

The White Cockade is the story of the early days of the American Revolution and of the men and women caught up in it: Josiah, who doesn’t want war but can’t escape it. Hugo, once Josiah’s best friend but now his bitter enemy. Mercy, who dreams of marrying Josiah. Walter, eager to fight the British. Alice, whose desperate love for Josiah knows no limits. Tarleton, the roguish, womanizing British officer. Patrick, who can solve the most complex mathematical equations while living in his own world.

From the author of the acclaimed history The Island at the Center of the World, an intimate new epic of the American Revolution that reinforces its meaning for today. With America's founding principles being debated today as never before, Russell Shorto looks back to the era in which those principles were forged. Drawing on new sources, he weaves the lives of six people into a seamless narrative that casts fresh light on the range of experience in colonial America on the cusp of revolution.

Yves de Bourganes just wanted to make some money to support his widowed mother as she tried to keep the family farm afloat. He wouldn’t have minded some adventure, too. He didn’t expect to be sent to fight in a war between France’s constant nemesis Great Britain and her boisterous American colonies across the treacherous sea. When he arrives, he meets Amalie, a slave girl with a difficult past, and his fate changes entirely, as he learns that some paths lead to unexpected destinations.