Showing results by author "John Ferling" in All Categories

Historian John Ferling delves into baseball in the fascinating dozen years following World War II, when baseball ruled as the national pastime, and the names of the game's principal stars were known even by those who weren't fans of the sport. Major league baseball integration in 1947 also...

In John Adams: A Life, Ferling offers a compelling portrait of one of the giants of the Revolutionary era. Drawing on extensive research, Ferling depicts a reluctant revolutionary, a leader who was deeply troubled by the warfare that he helped to make, and a fiercely independent statesman. Bringing to life an exciting time, an age in which Adams played an important political and intellectual role. this book is a singular biography of the man who succeeded George Washington in the presidency and shepherded the fragile new nation through the most dangerous of times. 

Bloomsbury presents Whirlwind by John Ferling, read by Bo Foxworth. Amid a great collection of scholarship and narrative history on the Revolutionary War and the American struggle for independence, there is a gaping hole; one that John Ferling’s latest book, Whirlwind, will fill. Books...

Bloomsbury presents Winning Independence by John Ferling, read by Rhett Samuel Price. Co-Winner of the 2022 Harry M. Ward Book Prize From celebrated historian John Ferling, the underexplored history of the second half of the Revolutionary War, when, after years of ­fighting, American...

It was an age of fascinating leaders and difficult choices, of grand ideas eloquently expressed and of epic conflicts bitterly fought. Now comes a brilliant portrait of the American Revolution, one that is compelling in its prose, fascinating in its details, and provocative in its fresh interpretations.

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, said bringing the fractious colonies together was like getting "thirteen clocks to strike at once."

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and James Monroe were in the vanguard of revolutionary ideas in the 18th century. As founding fathers, they risked their lives for American independence, but they also wanted more. Each wished for profound changes in the political and social fabric of pre-1776 America and hoped that the American Revolution would spark republican and egalitarian revolutions throughout Europe, sweeping away the old aristocratic order. Ultimately, each rejoiced at the opportunity to be a part of the French Revolution, a cause that became increasingly untenable as idealism gave way to the bloody terror.

In this gripping chronicle of America's struggle for independence, award-winning historian John Ferling transports listeners to the grim realities of that war, capturing an eight-year conflict filled with heroism, suffering, cowardice, betrayal, and fierce dedication. As Ferling demonstrates, it was a war that America came much closer to losing than is now usually remembered. General George Washington put it best when he said that the American victory was "little short of a standing miracle."

Even compared to his fellow founders, George Washington stands tall. Our first president has long been considered a stoic hero, holding himself above the rough-and-tumble politics of his day. Now John Ferling peers behind that image, carefully burnished by Washington himself, to show us a leader who was not only not above politics but a canny infighter---a master of persuasion, manipulation, and deniability.

Bloomsbury presents Jefferson and Hamilton by John Ferling, read by Bo Foxworth. For readers of Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, the spellbinding history of the epic rivalry that shaped our republic: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and their competing visions for America. The decade of...

Bloomsbury presents Shots Heard Round the World by John Ferling, read by Jason Keller. From acclaimed historian John Ferling, a major, global reappraisal of the Revolutionary War on its 250th Anniversary. In April 1775, British troops marched to Lexington, where an armed group of Yankees awaited...