Revolution & Founding

From National Book Award winner Ron Chernow, a landmark biography of George Washington....

Margaret Corbin was an early woman warrior who broke gender barriers to assist the Continental Army. Despite devastating losses and physical wounds, she persevered in defending Fort Washington in one of the first battles of the Revolutionary War.

From the massively popular podcaster and New York Times best-selling author comes the story of the Marquis de Lafayette's lifelong quest to protect the principles of democracy, told through the lens of the three revolutions he participated in....

Poor Richard's Almanack contained the calendar, astronomical and astrological information, poems, and sayings....

What causes people to forsake their country and take arms against it? What prompts their neighbors, hardly distinguishable in station or success, to defend that country against the rebels?  That is the question H. W. Brands answers....

Hailed by Thomas Jefferson as "the best commentary on the principles of government which was ever written," The Federalist Papers is a collection of 85 essays published by Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay from 1787 to 1788.... 

Published anonymously on January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine's legendary work made the case for American independence....

In The Words That Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered....

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation....

Steven Johnson recounts the story of the brilliant man who embodied the relationship between science, religion, and politics for America's Founding Fathers....

This prize-winning and critically acclaimed history uses foreign relations as the lens through which to tell the story of America's dramatic rise from 13 disparate colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast to the world's greatest superpower....

Stacy Schiff brings her masterful skill as historian and storyteller to the life of Samuel Adams, examining his transformation from the listless, failing son of a wealthy family into the tireless, silver-tongued revolutionary....

American History, Volume 1 surveys the broad sweep of American history. Drawing on a deep range of research and years of classroom teaching experience, Thomas S. Kidd offers students an engaging overview of the first half of American history....

Master historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands crafts a fresh and lively narrative of the early years of the republic as the Founding Fathers fought one another with competing visions of what our nation would be....

In The Demagogue's Playbook, acclaimed legal scholar Eric A. Posner offers a blueprint for how America can prevent the rise of a demagogue and protect the features of a democracy that help it thrive - and restore national greatness, for one and all....

Named a New York Times Notable Book, Empire of Liberty offers a marvelous account of this pivotal era in American history....

Here is a brisk, accessible, and vivid introduction to arguably the most important event in the history of the United States: the American Revolution....

It is often overlooked that Alexander Hamilton was instrumental in creating the key financial building blocks of the young United States of America....

As Ben experimented, people peppered him with questions about electricity. Distracted, Ben was still holding the ends of two bare wires when the other ends touched the Leyden jars. A massive charge knocked him to the ground....

Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders....

In The Story of America, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore investigates American origin stories....

The remarkable story of John Marshall who, as chief justice, statesman, and diplomat, played a pivotal role in the founding of the United States....

The game of chess has long be used a microcosm for everything from international politics to war....

The fighting prowess of United States Marines is second to none, but few know of the Corps' humble beginnings and what it achieved during the early years of the American Revolution....

 By the time he was 30, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin’s protégé, and become John Adams’s confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington’s surgeon general....

In 1803, the United States made a deal to purchase a big area of land called the Louisiana Territory. Soon after, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were asked to lead an expedition into the American Northwest to explore the new land. After the journey, many stories were told about it—but not all of them are true.

Margaret Corbin was an early woman warrior who broke gender barriers to assist the Continental Army. Despite devastating losses and physical wounds, she persevered in defending Fort Washington in one of the first battles of the Revolutionary War. Her courage under fire and willingness to take up arms earned her the nickname "Captain Molly" and a lasting place in history as a revolutionary hero.

This audiobook offers an immersive journey into the foundational documents of the United States of America, masterfully narrated by Jason McCoy. Instead of merely presenting the text, McCoy brings to life the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights through his engaging and thoughtful narration. This unique auditory experience allows listeners to delve deep into the essence of these pivotal documents, which are the bedrock of American democracy and encapsulate the nation's ideals and aspirations.

Based on new archival research, Fort Ticonderoga, The Last Campaigns: The War in the North, 1777-1783 by distinguished historian Mark Edward Lender highlights the strategic importance of the fort as British, American, and regional forces fought for control of the northern front at a critical point in the war. The book tells the Ticonderoga story in all of its complexity and drama, correcting misconceptions embedded in many previous accounts, and sheds vital new light on this key chapter in America's struggle for independence.

New York City, the strategic center of the Revolutionary War, was the most important place in North America in 1776. That summer, an unruly rebel army under George Washington repeatedly threatened to burn the city rather than let the British take it. Shortly after the Crown's forces took New York City, much of it mysteriously burned to the ground.