american revolution

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 372 pages. The Boston Massacre, known as the Incident on King Street by the British, was an event on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers shot and killed people while under attack by a mob. The British soldiers were put on trial, found guilty of manslaughter and had their thumbs branded with an 'M' for murder as punishment. This book covers the action and the subsequent trial. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. The colonists who settled the backcountry in eighteenth-century New England were recruited from the social fringe, people who were desperate for land, autonomy, and respectability and who were willing to make a hard living in a rugged environment. Mark Williams' microhistorical approach gives voice to the settlers, proprietors, and officials of the small colonial settlements that became Granby, Connecticut, and Ashfield, Massachusetts. These people-often disrespectful, disorderly, presumptuous, insistent, and defiant-were drawn to the ideology of the Revolution in the 1760s and 1770s that stressed equality, independence, and property rights. The backcountry settlers pushed the emerging nation's political culture in a more radical direction than many of their leaders or the Founding Fathers preferred and helped put a democratic imprint on the new nation. This accessibly written book will resonate with all those interested in the social and political relationships of early America.

Hardcover. NY, Liveright, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 375 pages. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis offers an epic account of the origins and clashing ideologies of America's revolutionary era, recovering a war more brutal, and more disorienting, than any in our history, save perhaps the Civil War. For more than two centuries, historians have debated the history of the American Revolution, disputing its roots, its provenance, and above all, its meaning. These questions have intrigued Ellis-one of our most celebrated scholars of American history-throughout his entire career. With this much-anticipated volume, he at last brings the story of the revolution to vivid life, with "surprising relevance" (Susan Dunn) for our modern era. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Chapel Hill NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 324 pages, b&w illustrations. Published for the Williamsburg, VA Institute of Early American History & Culture. Instead of recounting, in detail, the public events of John Adams's extraordinary career, Peter Shaw views as a whole Adams's character, thought, and acts, personalizing for the reader the most remote of our Founding Fathers. This compact but comprehensive biography brilliantly portrays the poignant revelations of John Adams's inner life implicit in the recently released Adams family manuscripts. The formal side of Adams is reconciled with his remarkably colorful private life by the author's penetrating grasp of the whole man. Adams's behavior appears less eccentric when viewed in the context of its origin in the village life of eighteenth~century Massachusetts; and his politics and ideas appear less abstractly motivated when viewed in the light of the evolution of his character. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, WW Norton & Co,, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. As World War II came to an end, General George Marshall was renowned as the architect of Allied victory. Set to retire, he instead accepted what he thought was a final mission-this time not to win a war, but to stop one. Across the Pacific, conflict between Chinese Nationalists and Communists threatened to suck in the United States and escalate into revolution. His assignment was to broker a peace, build a Chinese democracy, and prevent a Communist takeover, all while staving off World War III. In his thirteen months in China, Marshall journeyed across battle-scarred landscapes, grappled with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and plotted and argued with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his brilliant wife, often over card games or cocktails. The results at first seemed miraculous. But as they started to come apart, Marshall was faced with a wrenching choice. Its consequences would define the rest of his career, as the secretary of state who launched the Marshall Plan and set the standard for American leadership, and the shape of the Cold War and the US-China relationship for decades to come. It would also help spark one of the darkest turns in American civic life, as Marshall and the mission became a first prominent target of McCarthyism, and the question of "who lost China" roiled American politics. Remainder dot to top edge, otherwise like new.

Hardcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, colorful dust jacket with a retro-style illustration by Gregory Manchess. The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s. But not everyone is ready to let it go. Not aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents and veteran of countless USO tours to buck up American troops in the field. And not the five remaining members of the self-proclaimed People's Revolutionary Army, who've decided that kidnapping Koo Davis would be the perfect way to bring their cause back to life. Like new.

Softcover. Chicago, Quadrangle, reprint, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 487 pages. This "Early National" period, one of yearning adolescence in the life of the nation, is the subject of this study which shows how the United States went about winning economic and cultural independence from Europe to match the political emancipation gained by the Revolution.

Hardcover. Baltimore, Clearfield Company, reprint, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth, gilt lettering on spine, 132 pages. A reprint of a book written by Alexander Jones in 1855. The book explores the role of Welsh immigrants and their descendants during the American Revolution. It provides a detailed account of the Welsh contributions to the war effort, including their participation in battles, their leadership in politics and commerce, and their support for the cause of American independence. The book is divided into several chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of Welsh involvement in the Revolution. It begins by discussing the early settlement of Welsh immigrants in America, their struggles to maintain their language and culture, and their eventual integration into American society. Jones then goes on to describe the various battles and campaigns in which Welsh soldiers fought, including the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Battle of Saratoga, and the Battle of Yorktown. He also highlights the contributions of Welsh leaders such as General Richard Montgomery and Colonel William Davies.In addition to military contributions, the book also explores the role of Welsh Americans in politics and commerce during the Revolution. Jones discusses the involvement of Welshmen in the Continental Congress, as well as their contributions to the development of American industry and trade. Overall, The Cymry of '76 provides a comprehensive and detailed account of the Welsh contribution to the American Revolution. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, price-clipped dust jacket, 513 pages, b&w illustrations. In 1918 the U.S. government decided to involve itself with the Russian Revolution by sending troops to Siberia. This book re-creates that unhappily memorable story: the arrival of British marines at Murmansk, the diplomatic maneuvering, the growing Russian hostility, the uprising of Czechoslovak troops in central Siberia which threatened to overturn the Bolsheviks, the acquisitive ambitions of the Japanese in Manchuria, and finally the decision by President Wilson to intervene with American troops. Of this period Kennan writes, "Never, surely, in the history of American diplomacy, has so much been paid for so little." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. NY, Cambridge University Press, reprint, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 434 pages. Of all the terms with which Americans define themselves as members of society, few are as elusive as "middle class." This book traces the emergence of a recognizable and self-aware "middle class" between the era of the American Revolution and the end of the nineteenth century. The author focuses on the development of the middle class in larger American cities, particularly Philadelphia and New York. He examines the middle class in all its complexity, and in its day-to-day existence--at work, in the home, and in the shops, markets, theaters, and other institutions of the big city. The book places the new language of class---in particular the new term "middle class"--in the context of the concrete, interwoven experiences of specific anonymous Americans who were neither manual workers nor members of urban upper classes. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 270 pages. When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, a banana hauler, a dockside hustler, and a plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures. Rich Cohen's brilliant historical profile unveils Zemurray as a hidden kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary, driven by an indomitable will to succeed. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 735 pages. light stamp to top edge. Exceptionally nice condition.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday & Co., 1st, 1962, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a worn and chipped dust jacket. A volume in the Mainstream of Americas Series, edited by Lewis Gannett. Between the period of settlements in colonial America and the time of the Revolutionary War, English and French interests clashed in a struggle to determine who would rule the New World. It was a time from which a great deal of fiction draws inspiration, an exciting and dramatic period well~salted with the Washingtons, Johnsons, Frontenacs, Amhersts, Wolfes, and Montcalms who so greatly influenced the early growth of our land. Edward Hamilton has reconstructed this absorbing story of wilderness, forts, and weapons with a scholarly respect for minute detail. Name on half-title page, otherwise clean copy.

Hardcover. Lanham MD, AltaMira Press, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 217 pages with color photos throughout. This book is a full-color catalogue raisonne and interprets the distinctive furniture made by John Shearer, one of the most accomplished and intriguing furniture makers during the post-Revolutionary period. Shearer emigrated from Scotland in the late 18th century and retained loyalist sympathies throughout his life, evidenced by the imagery and inscriptions sympathetic to various British causes-such as the suppression of the Irish rebellion in 1798 and the British victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805-that he worked into his furniture. Davison provides insight into the furniture's appeal to Anglo-American patrons, not secret loyalists, but men still culturally tied to Great Britain. Shearer's pieces are scattered among various collections, and many of them have been identified only in the last 25 years. This catalog is the only work in which all of Shearer's known pieces of furniture are presented in a single volume.

NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 609 pages, b&w illustrations. They say that history is written by the victors. But not in the case of the most famous dissenter on the Supreme Court. Almost a century after his death, John Marshall Harlan's words helped end segregation and gave us our civil rights and our modern economic freedom. But his legacy would not have been possible without the courage of Robert Harlan, a slave who John's father raised like a son in the same household. After the Civil War, Robert emerges as a political leader. With Black people holding power in the Republican Party, it is Robert who helps John land his appointment to the Supreme Court. At first, John is awed by his fellow justices, but the country is changing. Northern whites are prepared to take away black rights to appease the South. Giant trusts are monopolizing entire industries. Against this onslaught, the Supreme Court seemed all too willing to strip away civil rights and invalidate labor protections. So as case after case comes before the court, challenging his core values, John makes a fateful decision: He breaks with his colleagues in fundamental ways, becoming the nation's prime defender of the rights of Black people, immigrant laborers, and people in distant lands occupied by the US. Harlan's dissents, particularly in Plessy v. Ferguson, were widely read and a source of hope for decades. Thurgood Marshall called Harlan's Plessy dissent his "Bible"--and his legal roadmap to overturning segregation. In the end, Harlan's words built the foundations for the legal revolutions of the New Deal and Civil Rights eras.

Softcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, reprint, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 311 pages. After decades of bloodshed and political terror, many lament the rise of the left in Latin America. Since the triumph of Castro, politicians and historians have accused the left there of rejecting democracy, embracing communist totalitarianism, and prompting both revolutionary violence and a right-wing backlash. Through unprecedented archival research and gripping personal testimonies, Greg Grandin powerfully challenges these views in this classic work. In doing so, he uncovers the hidden history of the Latin American Cold War: of hidebound reactionaries holding on to their power and privilege; of Mayan Marxists blending indigenous notions of justice with universal ideas of equality; and of a United States supporting new styles of state terror throughout the region. With Guatemala as his case study, Grandin argues that the Latin American Cold War was a struggle not between political liberalism and Soviet communism but two visions of democracy--one vibrant and egalitarian, the other tepid and unequal--and that the conflict's main effect was to eliminate homegrown notions of social democracy.

Hardcover. NY, Liveright, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. In the summer of 1862, after a year of protracted fighting, Abraham Lincoln decided on a radical change of strategy-one that abandoned hope for a compromise peace and committed the nation to all-out war. The centerpiece of that new strategy was the Emancipation Proclamation: an unprecedented use of federal power that would revolutionize Southern society. In The Long Road to Antietam, Richard Slotkin, a renowned cultural historian, reexamines the challenges that Lincoln encountered during that anguished summer 150 years ago. In an original and incisive study of character, Slotkin re-creates the showdown between Lincoln and General George McClellan, the "Young Napoleon" whose opposition to Lincoln included obsessive fantasies of dictatorship and a military coup. He brings to three-dimensional life their ruinous conflict, demonstrating how their political struggle provided Confederate General Robert E. Lee with his best opportunity to win the war, in the grand offensive that ended in September of 1862 at the bloody Battle of Antietam. 10 illustrations; 8 maps.

Hardcover. Gloucester MA, Peter Smith, reprint, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light blue cloth with dark blue lettering on spine. 360 pages. Originally published in 1902. The author looks at the formation of the Tory or Loyalist party in the American Revolution, its persecution, the banishment (or death) of over 100,000 of these most conservative and respectable Americans, and the consequences of their banishment. In numbers, historically it is only comparable to the fates of the Moors of Spain and the Huguenots of France. This was the first book by the famous historian Claude Halstead van Tyne (1869-1930), who was a Michigan and Pennsylvania professor and author who wrote extensively on the American Revolution. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise a bright, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, Book Club, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 502 pages. Bookplate on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Brattleboro VT, Stephen Greene Press, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 160 pages, b&w illustrations. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. NY, Vintage Books, reprint, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 309 pages. The "old revolutionaries" were Samuel Adams, Isaac Sears, Thomas Young, Richard Henry Lee, and Charles Carroll. Of widely varying backgrounds and interests, all of them had their greatest influence in the years between 1769 and 1776, and all of them saw their power transferred after the war to the men we know as "the Founding Fathers." In telling the stories of these men, Maier shows how the American Revolution was less a collective movement than a commitment to an ideal of a republic, which different people interpreted differently. She describes not just why Americans made the Revolution, but what the Revolution did to them.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 354 pages, b&w illustrations. An illustrated study brings to life the atmosphere and personalities of pre-revolutionary Paris, traces their influence on the American envoy, and recounts his participation in the life of the city and its intrigues at court. Clean copy.

Softcover. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 358 pages with index. In The Power of the Purse, E. James Ferguson examines the intricate financial history of the American Revolution and the Confederation and connects it to political and constitutional developments in the period. Whether states or Congress should pay the debts of the Revolution and collect the taxes was a pivotal question whose solution would largely determine the country's progress toward national union. Ultimately, says Ferguson, the Revolutionary debt fulfilled an important purpose as a "bond of union." Ferguson's masterful analysis has become a classic among the literature on the American Revolution. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.