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An illuminating financial history of the Founding Fathers, revealing how their personal finances shaped the Constitution and the new nation In 1776, upon the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers concluded America’s most consequential document with a curious note, pledging “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Lives and honor did indeed hang in the balance, yet just what were their fortunes? How much did the Founders stand to gain or lose through independence? And what lingering consequences did their respective financial stakes have on liberty, justice, and the fate of the fledgling United States of America? In this landmark account, historian Willard Sterne Randall investigates the private financial affairs of the Founders, illuminating like never before how and why the Revolution came about. The Founders’ Fortunes uncovers how these leaders waged war, crafted a constitution, and forged a new nation influenced in part by their own financial interests. In an era where these very issues have become daily national questions, the result is a remarkable and insightful new understanding of our nation’s bedrock values.
The long-awaited biography of the frontier Founding Father whose heroic actions and neglected writings inspired an entire generation from Paine to Madison. On May 10, 1775, in the storm-tossed hours after midnight, Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary firebrand, was poised for attack. With only two boatloads of his scraggly band of Vermont volunteers having made it across the wind-whipped waters of Lake Champlain, he was waiting for the rest of his Green Mountain boys to arrive. But with the protective darkness quickly fading, Allen determined that he hold off no longer. While Ethan Allen, a canonical hero of the American Revolution, has always been defined by his daring, predawn attack on the Bri...
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Set against a background of political conspiracy and sexual scandal, Willard Sterne Randall's engaging, authoritative biography brings to life Alexander Hamilton, the illegitimate son of a Scots merchant, who became a dashing Revolutionary soldier and outmaneuvered scores of better-born staff to become George Washington's principal aide, speechwriter, and legal adviser. Less than six years after the American Revolution, Hamilton pulled the infant nation to its feet, galvanizing it into a profitable, fast-growing commercial and military power that was independent of Europe. A ruthless and very successful New York businessman, he became the first secretary of the treasury and created the first federal bank. The American corporation was his brainchild, the stock market his legacy. Hamilton was the first to anticipate the Industrial Revolution and to envision America at its helm, but his "delirium of ambition" ended in tragedy. Although scandal, Washington's death, and, finally, Aaron Burr's bullet stopped Hamilton's surge for the Presidency, his towering influence lives on in the global economy of the twenty-first century.
The famous traitor's first modern biography unearths new evidence explaining why this successful general changed sides, and analyzes his agonized career
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"A Glow of Patriotic Fire"--"Salutary Neglect" -- "Force Prevails Now Everywhere" -- "For Cutting Off Our Trade" -- "To The Shores of Tripoli" -- "The Reign of Witches" -- "Free Trade and Sailors Rights" -- "War Now! War Always!" -- "Remember the Raisin" -- "Purified As by Fire" -- "Father, Listen to Your Children" -- "You Shall Now Feel the Effects of War" -- "Destroy and Lay Waste" -- "Hard War" -- "So Proudly We Hail" -- "I Must Not Be Lost
A classic biography, "George Washington: A Life" tells the human story of one of our founding fathers. "Randall's demythologized Washington comes vividly to life".--"Publishers Weekly" (starred).
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Explores the career of Benedict Arnold as patriot and soldier and his treasonous decision and betrayal during the Revolutionary War.