English Revolution Historical

John Hancock's overnight transformation from British loyalist to fiery rebel and first governor of the independent state of Massachusetts is one of the least known stories of the American Revolution. Acclaimed author Harlow Giles Unger introduces us to the Founding Father whose name is as recognizable as George Washington's, but whose thrilling life story is all but untold. Applying his historical expertise and storytelling gift, Unger details the fascinating life of one of our most extraordinary business and political leaders—the first signer of the Declaration of Independence.

George Washington spent more of his working life farming than he did at war or in political office. For more than 40 years, he devoted himself to the improvement of agriculture. Washington at the Plow depicts the "first farmer of America" as a leading practitioner of the New Husbandry, a transatlantic movement that spearheaded advancements in crop rotation.

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.

In the spring of 1914, Nadia Shulkina, the daughter of Russian aristocrats, looks toward a bright future. She has no premonitions of war, let alone the revolution that is about to destroy her comfortable world. Her once-noble family is stripped of every possession, and more terrible losses soon follow. To save what's left of her family and future, Nadia marries a zealous Bolshevik in an act of calculated reinvention.

A gripping, fact-based story of how Daniel Morgan and his courageous riflemen played a crucial role in George Washington's victory in the American Revolution.... They wore hunting shirts, deer-skin leggins and moccasins. Each had a tomahawk and a scalping knife in their belts and carried "long rifles" in their hands. Every rifleman was a Patriot volunteer, a tracker, and a hunter. And they could kill a redcoat from 250 yards.

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.

It is the dawn of the French Revolution when masses of hungry peasants burn the chateaux of aristocrats throughout France. After the death of his estranged family, an 18-year-old nobleman, the Marquis Marcel de la Croix, is forced to raise the royalist banner. The wreck of his family fortress becomes a bastion for newly disenfranchised aristocrats, and Marcel and his fiery associate, Pierre Lafont, lead a rebel group called the League of the Star. After a bitter falling out with Lafont, Marcel escapes to England incognito, hoping to put the past behind him.

In the history of American politics, there are few stories as enigmatic as that of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison's bitterly personal falling out. Together they helped bring the Constitution into being, yet soon after the new republic was born, they broke over the meaning of its founding document. Hamilton emphasized economic growth; Madison the importance of republican principles. Author Jay Cost is the first to argue that both men were right - and that their quarrel reveals a fundamental paradox at the heart of the American experiment.

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.

With the same riveting historical narrative that made The Kitchen Boy a national best seller and a book club favorite, Robert Alexander returns to revolutionary Russia for the harrowing tale of Rasputin's final days as told by his youthful and bold daughter, Maria.

They drowned Victoire's mother, claiming she was a witch. Then, her father died beneath the wheels of a nobleman's carriage. Forced to leave her village, Victoire finds work in Paris. But domestic employment comes at a high price, and the orphaned girl suffers gruesome abuse at the hands of a diabolical aristocracy. Accused of a heinous crime, they imprison her in the depraved lunatic asylum, La Salpêtriere. With the help of ruthless seductress, Jeanne de Valois, Victoire must find the strength to join the revolutionary force storming the Bastille.

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.

Having spent the past few years on missions in the Caribbean, Captain Bliven Putnam is all but ready to retire and settle down at home in Connecticut with his wife, Clarity. But as the Texas Revolution ignites and tensions in the Gulf of Mexico rise, Putnam is sent orders for a secret cruise that could decide the fate of their rebellion. American settlers in Texas have revolted against an increasingly tyrannical Mexican government.

"Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." This opening line, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's tribute poem "Paul Revere's Ride", celebrates a highlight of this Boston-born folk hero's life and times. Like many of his contemporaries, Paul Revere was not only a businessman and family man, but also a soldier and spy. Minutemen were patriots ready at a moment's notice to serve the cause of the Revolution.

Nathan Hale was an American patriot and soldier. Educated at Yale, he volunteered for service in the Continental Army at the outbreak of the war for independence. He rose to the rank of captain, whereupon he volunteered for a mission to reconnoiter the British position on Long Island. He was captured by the British, quickly tried, and hanged. Before his hanging, he uttered the infamous last words, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

The first in a series of plays featuring stories of the American Revolution, The Gathering Storm in America tells the remarkable story of an all-but-forgotten forefather whose actions initiated the tumultuous pre-Revolutionary period in America. It presents both the British and American points of view on issues that led to the Declaration of Independence and the building of a new nation based on democratic principles.

Known to generations of Americans for his stirring call to arms, “Give me liberty or give me death,” Patrick Henry is all but forgotten today as the first of the Founding Fathers to call for independence, the first to call for revolution, and the first to call for a bill of rights. If Washington was the “Sword of the Revolution” and Jefferson, “the Pen,” Patrick Henry more than earned his epithet as “the Trumpet” of the Revolution for rousing Americans to arms in the Revolutionary War.

Lee is remembered today for constantly defeating the Union’s Army of the Potomac in the Eastern theater from 1862-1865, considerably frustrating Lincoln and his generals. His leadership of his army led to him being deified after the war by some of his former subordinates, especially Virginians, and he came to personify the Lost Cause’s ideal Southern soldier. His reputation was secured in the decades after the war as a general who brilliantly led his men to amazing victories against all odds.

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.

A focused and concise biography, Realistic Visionary re-examines the key moments and themes of George Washington's life to present a more vivid portrait of the man himself, combining his attributes as a general, a politician, as well as a citizen. Drawing on unparalleled access to Washington's own papers, letters, and diaries, Professor Peter Henriques profiles the events that shaped Washington's life and career.