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Showing posts with the label revolutionary war

LIBERTY'S EXILES: AMERICAN LOYALISTS in the REVOLUTIONARY WORLD (audiobook) by Maya Jasanoff

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Published by Recorded Books in 2012. Read by L.J. Ganser. Duration: 16 hours, 10 minutes. Unabridged. In 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, Loyalists (Americans who opposed the American Revolution and stayed loyal to Britain) had a choice to make - stay and ride out the anti-Loyalist bias in the United States or move somewhere else. In the two years between the last major engagement (Yorktown) and the official end of the war and withdrawal of British troops the British decided to evacuate any Loyalists that wanted to go to other parts of the British Empire. One of the biggest advocates of this position was Guy Carleton, the British commander in America after Yorktown who later went on to become the Governor-in-Chief of Canada. He had more to do with what happened in this history than any other single person. Guy Carleton (1724-1808) The British government made an effort to make things right for these Loyalists. Not many Loyalists were completely reimbursed, but the fact that an

CULPER SPY RING: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History

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  Published by Hourly History in 2022. The  Hourly History  series features e-book histories and biographies that can be read in about an hour. They are great if you want to learn more about a topic, but you don't want to read a regular-sized book or biography. Plus, they offer a set of free books every weekend so you can explore without spending a dime. The Culper Spy Ring has become a trendy topic in Revolutionary War history (if you can have such a thing). The spy ring grew out of the need of Continental Army to keep tabs of the British forces based in New York City. The spies were untrained but clever amateurs who, over time developed fairly sophisticated techniques to deliver information, including newspaper ads, letters with invisible ink and secret codes. They used the fact that they were private citizens to their advantage by taking advantage of their normal business routes and family visits to pass along knowledge. I was intrigued by the fact that after the war the spy ri

THE AMERICAN STORY: CONVERSATIONS with MASTER HISTORIANS (audiobook) by David M. Rubinstein

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  Published in 2019 by Simon and Schuster Audio. Voice work by various historians hosted by David M. Rubinstein. Duration: 9 hours, 52 minutes. Unabridged . David M. Rubinstein is an avid amateur historian and financial supporter of history-related projects. He organized a series of 16 interviews of historians by the Library of Congress with the intended audience to be actual members of Congress with invited guests.  He picked historians who have written popular and professionally respected histories and biographies of famous Americans mostly presidents such as Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton), David McCullough (Adams and Truman), Cokie Roberts (Abigail Adams) and Doris Kearns Goodwin (Lincoln) and just let them discuss the person they studied. Doris Kearns Goodwin The audiobook consists of the actual audio of these interviews with a little introduction The interviews were all solid, but could have been better if Rubinstein had not insisted on inserting himself in the middle of them so

OUR FIRST CIVIL WAR: PATRIOTS and LOYALISTS in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION (audiobook) by H.W. Brand

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  Published by Random House Audio in November of 2021. Read by Steve Hendrickson. Duration: 16 hours, 31 minutes. Unabridged. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and William Franklin (1730-1813) When I read the title of this audiobook, I was sure that I was going to be listening to an in-depth look at how the population of the young United States dealt with its neighbors and family that disagreed about the question of independence. The most famous example is Benjamin Franklin and his son William Franklin. William Franklin was the last royal governor of New Jersey and their relationship never recovered from the shock of the Revolutionary War.  This book deals with more of these issues than most histories of the Revolutionary War era, but that is not particularly hard to do - most of them mention the Franklin family situation and use it as a stand-in for all families. But, it does not go in-depth into this concept of Loyalists vs. Patriots. For example, I learned more about this topic from thi

THE 1619 PROJECT: A NEW ORIGIN STORY by Nikole Hannah-Jones and others.

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    Published in November of 2021 by Random House Audio. Multicast Performance Duration: 18 hours, 57 minutes. Unabridged. I have developed a new hobby as of late - I read books that politicians tell people they should not read. The former governor of Indiana (and current President of Purdue University) tried to prohibit Indiana University (or anyone else) to use a well-known history book to teach anyone anywhere. I read it. The Lt. Governor of Texas cancelled a book reading about the Alamo because it was not a hero worship book. There's a politician in Texas that  posted a list of 850 books  that he wants to ban across the state that has provided a lot of potential reading.  But, in the last couple of years nothing, absolutely nothing, has compared to the  1619 Project and the controversy it has generated. If you have not heard of the original 1619 Project , you have not been paying attention to America's culture wars. President Trump hated it so much he created a commission

FOR LIBERTY and GLORY: WASHINGTON, LAFAYETTE, and THEIR REVOLUTIONS by James R. Gaines

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Published in 2007 by W.W. Norton and Company. First a bit of traditional blogging. I was going through some old receipts because I had plenty of time on my hands thanks to the Coronavirus lockdowns. This pile of receipts was 12 years old. It included some golden oldies like a Blockbuster receipt. I also found a receipt for this book. I had gotten a great deal on it - and it sat in my To-Be-Read pile for 12 years. I had no idea it was in that pile for that long. If you had asked me before I found the receipt, I would guess it had been 4 or 5 years at most. At that moment, this book moved to the top of my To-Be-Read pile. I should have read it long before now - it was an excellent read. Originally, I picked up this book because I simply didn't know much about Lafayette. I've read plenty of biographies of Washington and histories of the American Revolution. Lafayette always comes into the story somewhere in the middle. There's always a build up, with the Stamp Act, the Bos

THE HESSIAN by Howard Fast

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Hessian soldiers. Originally published in 1972. Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific author with a particular love of historical fiction. He is most famous for the novel Spartacus , the book that the famous movie is based on. This book is set in rural Connecticut late in the Revolutionary War. The war has moved on south of Connecticut. The main character is Dr. Feversham, a veteran of the Revolutionary War and wars in Europe who is sick to death of war. He is not a particularly pleasant man. He is a lapsed Catholic while most of his neighbors are Protestants. There is also a scattering of Quakers in the area. A British ship dropped off a squad of 16 Hessians who cause a panic. Hessians are German soldiers hired by the British to help supplement their soldiers during the Revolutionary War. They were particularly hated and feared because they were mercenaries (and they fought very well). The Americans could understand why the British fought, but what was the motivation of soldiers

FOR the COMMON DEFENSE: A MILITARY HISTORY of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA by Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski

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Originally published in 1984 by The Free Press. Note: This is a review of the original version of this book, published in 1984 and ending with the first Reagan administration. It has been expanded and updated to include events up to 2012. Soldiers in the Korean War in 1950. Way back in my undergrad days at Indiana University I took a class called American Military History . It was taught by a visiting professor from West Point and this book was an excellent choice for the text for the class. For 30+ years I have carried this book around with me - through 5 different moves and who knows how many book shelves this book was the anchor of my history section because it is quite beefy. But, I decided it was time to clear out some books. Technically, this book was a re-read but I didn't really remember anything from all of those years ago so... The book starts with colonial defense and moves along with the same format up through the early 1980's. There is a chapter about a

AMERICAN HERITAGE: GREAT MINDS of HISTORY interviews by Roger Mudd

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Published in 1999 by Wiley and Sons. Roger Mudd, formerly of CBS and NBC news, interviewed five historians about their special topics of expertise. They are all solid interviews that allow the historians to tell why their topics are important. Mudd does a great job of letting the interviews flow along a natural conversational path, but he does interrupt with questions that ask for clarification or challenge a point. The historians are: Gordon Wood discussing the American Revolution; James McPherson discussing the Civil War; Richard White discussing Westward Expansion; David McCullough discussing the Industrial Era; and Stephen Ambrose discussing World War II/Eisenhower/Nixon. This was a lot like sitting down with a talented professor in a coffee shop and letting him/her go on about their favorite topic. They weren't lectures, but more like a conversation. I know the work of four of these five historians and have read quite a bit of McCullough, Ambrose and McPherson. McPherson is

THE FIRST EMANCIPATOR: THE FORGOTTEN STORY of ROBERT CARTER the FOUNDING FATHER WHO FREED HIS SLAVES by Andrew Levy

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Published by Random House in 2005. Robert Carter holds a unique place in American history. He was a massively successful plantation owner in the Revolutionary War generation. He knew and worked with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Virginia legislature. He was not particularly effective as a politician, but he was effective at something that all of the above failed at. He freed his 450+ slaves while he was still alive and managed to keep his fortune and his property. He did it over a series of years, but he did it. Thomas Jefferson thought that it couldn't be done and often wrote about the quandary he found himself in. A good student of American history will remember that Washington freed his slaves - but that was after the death of Martha Washington. Carter did it while he was alive. Carter's motivations seem to have been a combination of religious ideals and political ideals, motivated by such things as the soaring rhetoric of the Declaration

INVENTING FREEDOM: HOW the ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES MADE the MODERN WORLD by Daniel Hannan

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Published by Broadside Books (a division of HarperCollins) in 2013. The author, Daniel Hannan. Photo by Gage Skidmore Daniel Hannan is a prominent Conservative Party author and politician in the UK. His book Inventing Freedom  is a celebration of the political ideas that are the foundation of what he calls the "Anglosphere". Hannan's thesis is that the idea of government based on an evolving body of law (he probably would hate the fact that I used the word evolving, but that is what the English Common Law is) that values the rights of the individual before the rights of the state and its leaders is an English invention that has spread and amplified throughout the "Anglosphere". This type of government encourages capitalism due to its influence on the individual. The Anglosphere  consists of The United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, other former British colonies that comprise the Commonwealth . These include Keny

APRIL MORNING: A NOVEL by Howard Fast

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Originally published in 1961. Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific writer (more than 60 novels, plus scores of short stories, plays, articles and histories). He is most famous work is  Spartacus , the novel that inspired the iconic movie by Stanley Kubrick. This is my second Howard Fast novel and if you throw in Spartacus you see a trend in Howard Fast's books - he likes to tell the story of the underdog who fights back. In this novel, the underdogs are the colonists of Massachusetts. The April morning in the title is the day that the British army moved on the stores of gunpowder in Concord, Massachusetts. This is when Paul Revere makes his famous ride. This action is now known as The Battles of Lexington and Concord. The book takes place in and around Lexington. Adam Cooper is a fifteen year old boy in 1775 and the troubles of Boston with the British Redcoats seems a world away. His father is deeply involved with the committees that try to workout a common response to the Br

THE WAR BEFORE the WAR: FUGITIVE SLAVES and the STRUGGLE for AMERICA'S SOUL from the REVOLUTION to the CIVIL WAR (audiobook) by Andrew Delbanco

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Published in 2018 by Penguin Audio. Read by Ari Fliakos. Duration: 13 hours, 40 minutes. Unabridged. Simply described, this book is an in-depth look at the slavery controversy in the United States from its very beginnings through the Civil War. I am an avid reader of books that explore American slavery and the Civil War. Anyone that denies that slavery wasn't THE issue that pushed America to Civil War is deluding themselves and simply has not read the statements that five of the seceding states (Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia) issued in 1860 and 1861. Slavery was the most discussed item in four of the five declarations (Virginia's brief declaration does not mention many specifics but does refer to "the oppression of Southern Slaveholding states"). As the reader goes through this book it is easy to see that slavery was always a difficult problem for every generation of Americans to deal with. The Founders wrestled with it and ultimately

DECLARATION: THE NINE TUMULTUOUS WEEKS WHEN AMERICA BECAME INDEPENDENT, MAY 1 - JULY 4, 1776 by William Hogeland

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Published in 2010 by Simon and Schuster Samuel Adams (1722-1803) When you read the history books, it seems obvious that the colonies steadily worked their way up to declaring their independence without much of a hitch. The beauty of William Hogeland's Declaration is that he shows that it was a lot closer than the history books usually portray. Samuel Adams and his cousin John Adams maneuvered many of the representatives to the Continental Congress into voting for independence and certainly manipulated the government of Pennsylvania. In fact, you could make the case that they toppled the government of Pennsylvania through a powerful media campaign combined with timely advice and political pressure and installed a pro-independence government just in time for the fateful vote. But, this new (to me) information was marred by a difficult to read text. The book just bounced around - the writing style just never got into a flow. I found it hard to read more than a page or two at

THOSE TURBULENT SONS of FREEDOM: ETHAN ALLEN'S GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS and the AMERICAN REVOLUTION (audiobook) by Christopher S. Wren

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Published by Tantor Audio in May of 2018 Read by Peter Berkrot Duration: 7 hours, 4 minutes Unabridged I pounced on this history because Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys have always been a mysterious presence in my readings on the Revolutionary War. They show up during the early days of the war and add a zest of mystery and frontiersman derring-do that blunts British momentum. And then...they just disappear from the typical history. Ethan Allen (1738-1789) The book follows the timeline history of the American Revolution, going back and forth between a series of the Green Mountain Boys. My fleeting impression of them was that they were some sort of super-patriotic mountain men. The reality, on the surface, seems more nuanced. But, in reality, I think that I was right. They were super-patriotic mountain men, but their loyalties did not lie with the United States - their devotion was to Vermont and only Vermont.  Vermont was not a colony when the Revolutionary War star

BLACK PROFILES in COURAGE: A LEGACY of AFRICAN-AMERICAN ACHIEVEMENT by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Alan Steinberg

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Originally published in 1996. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar presents a look at American history through a different lens than you usually see. This book follows from even before the arrival of Columbus through Rosa Parks receiving her just accolades in the 1990's. His underlying theme, as explained in the title, is that African-Americans have been contributing in important ways the entire time, but they are often "whitewashed" from history. Abdul-Jabbar is best known for his time as a top-level basketball player. But he is not just a jock (if you are a fan, you know he never was JUST a jock) - he is also an amateur historian and quite thoughtful. Clearly, he was inspired by the book Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy but this book is not structured in any way like that classic. The book starts with its weakest proposition from a historical perspective. There are historians that assert that African peoples were heavily involved in Mesoamerican history (Mayas, Aztecs, Olme

BUNKER HILL: A CITY, A SIEGE, A REVOLUTION (audiobook) by Nathaniel Philbrick

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Published in 2013 by Penguin Audio Read by Chris Sorensen Duration: 12 hours, 58 minutes Unabridged Nathaniel Philbrick's Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution is mis-named. While the battle is in the book, it is only a part of the story. In reality, this book is a history of Boston from the 1750s and 1760s right up to the Declaration of Independence. In a lot of ways this book is much more of a biography of Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty movement, along with Samuel Adams, John Adams and John Hancock. Warren is often overlooked nowadays because he died at Bunker Hill (which was really mostly fought on Breed's Hill). The excessive focus on Warren was, in my mind, one of the great weaknesses of the book. Philbrick spent too much time worrying over Warren's alleged personal failures and not enough time getting on with the story. It just bogged things down. Philbrick does not gloss over the warts of our Founding Fathers, noting tha

VICTORY at YORKTOWN: A NOVEL (George Washington Series #3) (audiobook) by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen

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Published in November of 2012 by Macmillan Audio. Read by William Dufris Duration: 12 hours, 2 minutes Unabridged Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen conclude their Revolutionary War-based trilogy with an up-and-down look at the final year of real action in the war (October of 1780 to October of 1781). Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumball The actual battle descriptions are quite good in the book. The book is absolutely great with its explanation of the strategies employed to maneuver Cornwallis into the Yorktown fortifications, the coordination between the French and American forces and demonstrates just how narrow this victory really was.  However, the audiobook starts out with a two hour overwrought description of the execution of Major Andre. Andre was the British officer that conspired with the infamous American traitor Benedict Arnold. While this scene was used referred back to often throughout the rest of the book, the scene itself was very repetitious 

THE FORT: A NOVEL by Bernard Cornwell

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Not Cornwell's Best Effort. Published in 2010 by HarperCollins Set in 1779 Massachusetts, Bernard Cornwell tells the story of the Penobscot Expedition - a small scale invasion by British forces of a bay in what is now Maine. The government of Massachusetts is determined to repel this invasion without help from the Continental Army. It calls up its militia and its fledgling navy. It does accept help from the American national Navy and its contingent of Marines. By far, the most famous American in this campaign is the commander of the Massachusetts' artillery unit, Lt. Colonel Paul Revere. Cornwell does a decent job of developing the British officers as characters.  A young officer named John Moore gets his first taste of battle here. In the Napoleonic Wars, Moore was one of the architects of Napoleon's eventual defeat. Cornwell's battle scenes are, as always, excellently described. He switches from naval battles to land battles with ease. I felt absolutely confid

THE FORGOTTEN FOUNDING FATHER: NOAH WEBSTER'S OBSESSION and the CREATION of an AMERICAN CULTURE (audiobook) by Joshua Kendall

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Published by Penguin Audio in 2011 Read by Arthur Morey Duration: 12 hours, 45 minutes Unabridged Referring to Noah Webster (1753-1848), the creator of the famed Webster Dictionary, as a Founding Father is generous, to say the least. He did live serve in the Connecticut militia, even deploying at one point, but he never saw much action. He did know many of the Founding Fathers and actually stayed in the homes of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, but they had frequent guests so it would not be fair to characterize those friendships as particularly close friendships. He did advocate strongly for the adoption of the Constitution and for a short time was actively involved in partisan politics as a newspaper editor in New York City. But, when people think Founding Father they are usually referring to far brighter lights than Noah Webster. A 1958 stamp featuring Noah Webster If I were naming this book I would have dropped the Forgotten Founding Father angle and kept the