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"Many Americans probably know the French and Indian War by way of the film adaptation (1992) of Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. In it Michael Mann directs the young Daniel Day-Lewis and, in parts, succeeds in capturing the strange solitude of warring in endless forest and the sudden ferocity of battle during this first truly world war. Writing an unusual work of art and history, Len Travers here excavates the story of a colonial-American 'lost patrol' during that war, turning musty documents into a gripping tale that could reach well beyond an academic readership. Fifty provincial soldiers left the fringes of settlement in fall, 1756, aiming to safeguard the upper reaches of New York. Within ...
Celebrating the Fourth provides a history of this holiday and explores its role in shaping a national identity and consciousness in three cities - Boston, Charleston, and Philadelphia - during the first fifty years of the American republic. Independence Day celebrations justified, validated, and helped maintain nationalism among people unused to offering political allegiance beyond their own state borders.
In 1858, Mary Millburn successfully made her escape from Norfolk, Virginia, to Philadelphia aboard an express steamship. Millburn's maritime route to freedom was far from uncommon. By the mid-nineteenth century an increasing number of enslaved people had fled northward along the Atlantic seaboard. While scholarship on the Underground Railroad has focused almost exclusively on overland escape routes from the antebellum South, this groundbreaking volume expands our understanding of how freedom was achieved by sea and what the journey looked like for many African Americans. With innovative scholarship and thorough research, Sailing to Freedom highlights little-known stories and describes the le...
Captain Daniel Drayton is a relatively unknown figure of American history who lived the life of an Atlantic coastal trader and abolitionist. He is memorable for his bravery in attempting to transport seventy-seven fugitive slaves to the North onboard the ship, the Pearl. In the summer of 1857, Drayton came to the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts and took his own life for reasons that were never determined - this work investigates his possible motives for doing so. Captain Daniel Drayton's life was filled with ambition and afflicted by failure, yet history sometimes forgets that those who have failed are just as valuable as those who succeeded. Martyr to Freedom illuminates the sad but honorable life of the abolitionist, set in a historical context. Readers of all ages can gain a sense of understanding and respect for this tragic time in American history, and the people who helped bring us out of it.
Lennard Gilmore Travers (1905-1968) MBE, MBBS (Melb.), FRCS (Edin.), FFARACS, FFARCS was a much-respected anaesthetist in Melbourne: a prestigious award is administered by the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthesia in his honour. Primary source material, including the candid wartime letters he wrote to his wife from the Middle East and from Morotai, have been used to portray a competent and considerate man. The book starts with some family background - his grandfather came from London to Central Queensland in the mid-nineteenth century - and includes a chapter on his wife Joan (née Bostock). It finishes with vignettes of two people important to the story, Mary Bostock and Lorna Greene. The book has more than 80 illustrations, many in colour.
The surprising history of how Americans have fought over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution for nearly two and a half centuries Americans agree that their nation’s origins lie in the Revolution, but they have never agreed on what the Revolution meant. For nearly two hundred and fifty years, politicians, political parties, social movements, and a diverse array of ordinary Americans have constantly reimagined the Revolution to fit the times and suit their own agendas. In this sweeping take on American history, Michael D. Hattem reveals how conflicts over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution—including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—have influenced the most ...
Introduction: "a correct remembrance of great events"--"By the eternal, they shall not sleep on our soil:" the New Orleans Campaign -- "Half a horse and half an alligator:" the Battle of New Orleans in the Era of Good Feelings -- "Under the command of a plain Republican--an American Cincinnatus:" the Battle of New Orleans in the Age of Jefferson -- "The union must and shall be preserved:" the Battle of New Orleans and the American Civil War -- "True daughters of the war:" the Battle of New Orleans at 100 -- "Not pirate ... privateer:" the Battle of New Orleans and mid-20th century popular culture -- "Tourism whetted by the celebration:" the Battle of New Orleans in the 20th century -- A "rustic and factual" appearance: the Battle of New Orleans at 200 -- Closing: "what is past is prologue
Raising a glass to toast someone at a wedding or birthday is a familiar and usually informal occurrence, but at one time it was a carefully orchestrated ritual. They were planned, revised, given at an event, and then printed in newspapers. Americans learned who was or was not toasted for early national celebrations: King George III, George Washington, the Fourth of July, Washington's birthday, Jefferson's election, or military victories. During the tumultuous years of partisan fighting, toasts were used to spread or attack certain ideologies. The toasts became glimpses into what Americans honored at specific moments in the years from the beginning of the American Revolution to the end of the War of 1812. This book is a history of the early American republic viewed through its many toasts, which were raised and published throughout the new nation. As one of the earliest forms of social media, they offer a unique lens to view American history and early popular opinion.
John Eliot (1604–90) has been called “the apostle to the Indians.” This book looks at Eliot not from the perspective of modern Protestant “mission” studies (the approach mainly adopted by previous research) but in the historical and theological context of seventeenth-century puritanism. Drawing on recent research on migration to New England, the book argues that Eliot, like many other migrants, went to New England primarily in search of a safe haven to practice pure reformed Christianity, not to convert Indians. Eliot’s Indian ministry started from a fundamental concern for the conversion of the unconverted, which he derived from his experience of the puritan movement in England....
In 1798 Robert Morris—“financier of the American Revolution,” confidant of George Washington, former U.S. senator—plunged from the peaks of wealth and prestige into debtors' prison and public contempt. How could one of the richest men in the United States, one of only two founders who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, suffer such a downfall? This book examines for the first time the extravagant Philadelphia town house Robert Morris built and its role in bringing about his ruin. Part biography, part architectural history, the book recounts Morris’s wild successes as a merchant, his recklessness as a land speculator, and his unrestrained passion in building his palatial, doomed mansion, once hailed as the most expensive private building in the United States but later known as “Morris’s Folly.” Setting Morris’s tale in the context of the nation’s founding, this volume refocuses attention on an essential yet nearly forgotten American figure while also illuminating the origins of America’s ongoing, ambivalent attitudes toward the superwealthy and their sensational excesses.