Search Results: History - Revolutionary War from I Cannot Live Without Books

1781: The Decisive Year of the Revolutionary War by Robert L. Tonsetic
The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended the American Revolutionary War, but it was the pivotal campaigns and battles of 1781 that decided the final outcome. 1781 was one of those rare years in American history when the future of the nation hung by a thread, and only the fortitude, determination, and sacrifice of its leaders and citizenry ensured its survival.
By 1781, America had been at war with the world's strongest empire for six years with no end in sight. British troops occupied key coastal cities, from New York to Savannah, and the Royal Navy prowled the waters off the American coast. The remaining Patriot forces hunkered down in the hinterland, making battle only at opportunities when British columns ventured near. But after several harsh winters and the failure of the nascent government to adequately supply the troops, the American army was approaching collapse. Mutinies began to emerge in Washington's ranks, the total… Read More

Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America's Independence by Jack Kelly
THERE IS A BLACK "CLOSEOUT/REMAINDER" MARK ON THE TOP PAGE EDGES.
The fighting men who turned the ideas of the Founders into reality were a diverse and surprising group of American. In this concise, riveting narrative of the Revolutionary War, Jack Kelly paints a moving portrait of its principal soldiers: merchants and mechanics, farmers and fishermen, paragons and drunkards. Most were ardent amateurs. Even George Washington, who was assigned to take over the brand-new Continental Army in 1775, consulted books on military tactics. Henry Knox, the burly Boston bookseller who took over the American artillery at the age of 25, had never been in combat. Nathanael Greene -- brilliant, but insecure -- was a pacifist Quaker who became the youngest of the American generals. Hulking Virginia backwoodsman Daniel Morgan relied on his deeply democratic instincts and his skill as a bare-knuckle fighter.
Focusing on a series of… Read More

The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775 - 1777 by Rick Atkinson
In June 1773, King George III attended a grand celebration of his reign over the greatest, richest empire since ancient Rome. Less than two years later, Britain's bright future turned dark: after a series of provocations, the king's soldiers took up arms against his rebellious colonies in America. The war would last eight years, and though at least one in ten of the Americans who fought for independence would die for that cause, the prize was valuable beyond measure: freedom from oppression and creation of a new republic.
Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn and two other superb books about World War II, has long been admired for his unparalleled ability to write deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative history. Now he turns his attention to a new war, and in the initial volume of the Revolution Trilogy he tells the story of the first twenty-one months of America's… Read More

The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution by Robert G. Parkinson
When the Revolutionary War began, the odds of a united, continental effort to resist the British seemed nearly impossible. Few on either side of the Atlantic expected thirteen colonies to stick together in a war against their cultural cousins. In this pathbreaking book, Robert Parkins argues that to unify the patriot side, political and communications leaders linked British tyranny to colonial prejudices, stereotypes, and fears about insurrectionary slaves and violent Indians.
Manipulating newspaper networks, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and their fellow agitators broadcast stories of British agents inciting African Americans and Indians to take up arms against the American rebellion. Using rhetoric like "domestic insurrectionists" and "merciless savages," the founding fathers rallied the people around a common enemy and made racial prejudice a cornerstone of the new republic.
In a fresh reading of… Read More