English Revolution Historical

A major biography of the Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American Revolution, looks past the storybook general and selfless champion of righteous causes who, at the age of 19, volunteered to fight under George Washington, casting aside fortune and family (from one of France's oldest families; his ancestors served in the Crusades and alongside Joan of Arc) to advance the transcendent aims of liberty and justice.

Remembrance...it’s a rumor, a whisper passed in the fields and veiled behind sheets of laundry. A hidden stop on the underground road to freedom, a safe haven protected by more than secrecy...if you can make it there. Ohio, present day. An elderly woman who is more than she seems warns against rising racism as a young woman grapples with her life. Haiti, 1791, on the brink of revolution. When the slave Abigail is forced from her children to take her mistress to safety, she discovers New Orleans has its own powers.

During the late 60s and early 70s, turbulence dominated both the world stage and the personal psyche of youth worldwide. It was an era of startling contrasts. Make peace, not war. Flower power. Turn on, tune in, drop out. Passion for ear-splitting, loud music. Vegetarian heroin users. Open the mind, close the establishment.

The biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era's most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. It was more than just a material object, however—it was also a hypothesis. Franklin was proposing that, armed with science, he could invent his way out of a climate crisis: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters sometimes brought life to a standstill.

When his father is killed by rebel vigilantes, Noah flees with his family to Boston. Intent on avenging his father, Noah becomes a spy for the British and firsthand witness to the power of partisan rumor to distort facts, the hypocrisy of men who demand freedom while enslaving others, and the human connections that bind people together regardless of stated allegiances.

The life of John Marshall, founding father and America's premier chief justice. In 1801, a genial and brilliant Revolutionary War veteran and politician became the fourth chief justice of the US. He would hold the post for 34 years (still a record), expounding the Constitution he loved. Before he joined the Court, it was the weakling of the federal government, lacking in dignity and clout. After he died, it could never be ignored again.

The American Colonies, 1765. As the Stamp Act dissent marks the first organized resistance to English rule, someone is kidnapping and killing members of the Iroquois Nation. Asked by an elder to investigate, Scottish exile Duncan McCallum soon uncovers a network of secret runners supporting the nascent “committees of correspondence", engaged in the political dissent fomenting across colonial borders. But as Duncan follows the trail further, it leads to his capture.

Francine du Plessix Gray’s beautifully realized historical novel reveals the untold love story between Swedish aristocrat Count Axel von Fersen and Marie Antoinette. The romance begins at a masquerade ball in Paris in 1774, when the dashing nobleman first meets the mesmerizing 19-year-old dauphine, wife of the reclusive prince who will soon become Louis XVI. This electric encounter launches a love affair that will span the course of the French Revolution.

A Free Woman on God's Earth is the story of Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, the enslaved African woman who had the courage and conviction to speak what was in her heart, suing for her freedom in a Massachusetts court of law. In gaining her own freedom, she set the stage for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783.

The question of how the American colonists made the long trip from being subjects of the British king to being citizens of the independent United States has nearly as many answers as there were people. Within these collected tales, you'll be transported to the time when the American Revolution tested how a tobacco farmer, a Spanish sailor, and a Quaker blacksmith would all navigate the tumultuous times of the American Revolution.

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.

She is the adventurer of the family. Her brother, the gentle dreamer. Even as they bond over folktales and hold each other close, their world has never felt so dangerous. Revolutionaries and pelones are in conflict, soldiers have turned into scavengers, and an escaped tiger has slipped up the mountain, looking for easy prey. As the darkest of legends becomes real, a young girl will do anything to save her brother’s life.

Between 1796 and 1815, the continent of Europe was held in thrall by one of the most remarkable personalities of modern times, a man whose name was on the lips of every man, woman, and child: Napoleon Bonaparte. Certainly, one would have to go back to the time of Charlemagne to find his equal on the field of battle, in the halls of diplomacy, or in the courts of jurisprudence.

Prosper Creale has enough to deal with in wrenching enough out of his farm to keep his family fed and healthy in the face of the disruptions of the American Revolution. Then God speaks to him, and the radical teachings of a traveling preacher lead him to join in the nascent abolitionist movement, a path that could lead to destruction… or salvation.

A sequel to The Indian and Me, this book has the same characters and introduces two new ones. They are, Jenny and Jake, who on their way to America for very different reasons, find themselves on a raft after their ship goes down. That is when the adventure starts, and these two unlikely people find themselves in a fake marriage to stay alive and survive in the New World.

In 1968 two young Vietnamese sisters flee to Saigon after their village on the Mekong River is attacked by American forces and burned to the ground. The only survivors of the brutal massacre that killed their family, the sisters struggle to survive but become estranged, separated by sharply different choices and ideologies. Mai ekes out a living as a GI bar girl, but Tam’s anger festers, and she heads into jungle terrain to fight with the Viet Cong. For nearly 10 years, neither sister knows if the other is alive. Do they both survive the war?

It all began with a line of Persian poetry . . . Anna and Nouri, both studying in Chicago, fall in love despite their very different backgrounds. Anna, who has never been close to her parents, is more than happy to return with Nouri to his native Iran, to be embraced by his wealthy family. Beginning their married life together in 1978, their world is abruptly turned upside down by the overthrow of the Shah, and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

As the Nazis conquer Europe, Jewish teen Max and his parents flee persecution in Germany for Holland, where Max finds true friends and a life-altering romance. But when Hitler invades in 1940, Max must escape to Chicago, leaving his parents and friends behind. When he learns of his parents' deportation and murder, Max immediately enlists in the US Army. After basic training he is sent to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, where he is trained in interrogation and counterintelligence.

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.

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.