This book shows how the predominantly national focus that characterises studies of the United States after 1783 can be integrated with global trends, as viewed from the perspective of imperial history. The book also argues that historians of European empires have much to gain by considering the United States after 1783 as a newly-decolonised country that acquired overseas territorial possessions in 1898 and remained a member of the Western 'imperial club' until the mid-twentieth century. The wide-ranging synthesis by A. G. Hopkins, American Empire: A Global History (2018), provides the starting point for contributions that appraise its main theme and take it in new directions. The first three chapters identify fresh approaches to U.S. history between the Revolution and the Civil War, suggesting ways in which the United States can be considered as a newly-decolonised country, examining shifting meanings of the term 'empire,' and reassessing the character of continental expansion. The second group deals with initiatives and responses in the Philippines and Cuba, reconsidering the character of nationalism in two of the most important overseas territories that were either ruled directly or controlled indirectly by the United States, and placing it an international context. The third group examines the exercise of U.S. power in the twentieth century, identifying aspects of international law that have been overlooked and reviewing the extensive literature on the controversial themes of the Cold War and informal empire after 1945. The ten chapters in this edited volume bring together noted specialists on the history of international relations, the United States, and the insular empire it ruled in the twentieth century. The chapters were originally published as articles in a special issue of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.

The American Revolution Reader is a collection of leading essays on the American revolutionary era from the eve of the imperial crisis through George Washington's presidency. Articles have been chosen to represent classic themes, such as the British-colonial relationship during the eighteenth century, the political and ideological issues underlying colonial protests, the military conflict, the debates over the Constitution, and the rise of political parties. The volume also captures how the field has been reshaped in recent years, including essays that cover class strife and street politics, the international context of the Revolution, and the roles of women, African Americans and Native Americans, as well as the reshaping of the British Empire after the war. With essays by Gordon S. Wood, Mary Beth Norton, T.H. Breen, John M. Murrin, Gary B. Nash, Woody Holton, Rosemarie Zagarri, John Shy, Alan Taylor, Maya Jasanoff, and many other prominent historians, the collection is ideal for classroom use and any student of the American Revolution.

Now in paperback--the award-winning National Geographic book that presents the untold story of the invisible war behind the American Revolution. A riveting tale of intrigue, spies, counterspies and secret agents, "George Washington, Spymaster"is a unique and entertaining account of one of the most important chapters in our nation's history. The compelling narrative reveals the surprising role played by the first commander-in-chief, General George Washington in the War of Independence.
Follow the action as 1775 dawns, and Washington finds himself in serious trouble. At war with Britain, the world's most powerful empire, his ragtag army possesses only a few muskets, some cannons, and no money. The Americans' only hope is to wage an invisible war--a war of spies, intelligence networks, and deception.
Enter the shadowy world of double agents, covert operations, codes and ciphers--a world so secret that America's spymaster himself doesn't know the identities of some of his agents. Meet members of the elusive Culper Ring, uncover a "mole" in the Sons of Liberty, and see how invisible ink and even a clothesline are used to send secret messages. You can even use Washington's own secret codebook, published here for the first time. Experience at close quarters the successes and failures of the Americans as they strive to outwit the British. Meet the chief of covert operations, one Benjamin Franklin, and several other surprising players in America's secret war.
Author Thomas B. Allen has sifted through dozens of historical documents and coded letters to uncover the facts about a time shrouded in secrets. Archival art, coupled with lively pen-and-ink sketches by children's illustrator Cheryl Harness, detail all the action and adventure of this momentous tale. Like the highly acclaimed hardback, this little paperback is sure to have a big impact on the imagination of readers everywhere.

The American South is so identified with the Civil War that people often forget that the key battles from the final years of the American Revolution were fought in Southern states. The Southern backcountry was the center of the fight for independence, but backcountry devotion to the Patriot cause was slow in coming. Decades of animosity between coastal elites and backcountry settlers who did not enjoy accurate representation in the assemblies meant a complex political and social milieu throughout this turbulent time.

The Battles of Kings Mountain and Cowpens brings to light the world of the Southern backcountry that engendered its role in the Revolutionary War. With careful attention to political, social, and military history, Walker concentrates on the communities and events not typically covered in books on the Revolutionary War. Through government documents, autobiographies, correspondence, and diaries, The Battles of Kings Mountain and Cowpens gives students of the Revolution an important new perspective on the role of the South in the resolution of the fighting.

They worked Virginia's tobacco fields, South Carolina's rice marshes, and the Black Belt's cotton plantations. Wherever they lived, enslaved people found their lives indelibly shaped by the Southern environment. By day, they plucked worms and insects from the crops, trod barefoot in the mud as they hoed rice fields, and endured the sun and humidity as they planted and harvested the fields. By night, they clandestinely took to the woods and swamps to trap opossums and turtles, to visit relatives living on adjacent plantations, and at times to escape slave patrols and escape to freedom. Scars on the Land is the first comprehensive history of American slavery to examine how the environment fundamentally formed enslaved people's lives and how slavery remade the Southern landscape. Over two centuries, from the establishment of slavery in the Chesapeake to the Civil War, one simple calculation had profound consequences: rather than measuring productivity based on outputs per acre, Southern planters sought to maximize how much labor they could extract from their enslaved workforce. They saw the landscape as disposable, relocating to more fertile prospects once they had leached the soils and cut down the forests. On the leading edge of the frontier, slavery laid waste to fragile ecosystems, draining swamps, clearing forests to plant crops and fuel steamships, and introducing devastating invasive species. On its trailing edge, slavery left eroded hillsides, rivers clogged with sterile soil, and the extinction of native species. While environmental destruction fueled slavery's expansion, no environment could long survive intensive slave labor. The scars manifested themselves in different ways, but the land too fell victim to the slave owner's lash. Although typically treated separately, slavery and the environment naturally intersect in complex and powerful ways, leaving lasting effects from the period of emancipation through modern-day reckonings with racial justice.

An indispensable resource for investigating America's War for Independence, this book provides a comprehensive yet concise narrative that combines the author's original perspectives with the latest scholarship on the subject. Without the War for Independence and its successful outcome for the patriots, the course of American development-our institutions, culture, politics, and economics-would have run in radically different directions. From any perspective, the War for Independence was one of the seminal events of national history. This book offers a clear, easy-to-read, and complete overview of the origins of the imperial crisis, the course of the war, and the ultimate success of the movement for independence. It also emphasizes the human cost of the struggle: the ferocity of the fighting that stemmed from the belief among participants on all sides that defeat was tantamount to cultural, political, and even physical extinction. The narrative encompasses the author's original insights and takes advantage of the newest scholarship on the American Revolution. The book includes primary documents and biographical sketches representative of the various participants in the revolutionary struggle-for example, private soldiers, senior officers, loyalists, women, blacks, and Indians-as well as famous speeches and important American and British official documents. The edited documents offer readers a sense of the actual voices of the revolutionary struggle and a deeper understanding of how primary documents serve historians' narration and interpretation of long-ago events. The result is a new synthesis that brings a deeper understanding of America's defining struggle to an informed public readership as well as college and high school students. Offers readers an incisive view of the ferocity of the war and the human cost of independence Documents how and why the Continental Army became a racially integrated army, something America would not see again until the Korean War Explains how a colonial rebellion in America became part of a world war

'People can only be free in relation to one another.' Three exhilarating and inspiring essays in which the great twentieth-century political philosopher argues that there can be no freedom without politics, and no politics without freedom. One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

The Grand Strategy, the imaginative plan to divide the rebellious American colonies, ended in disaster. On October 17, 1777, General Sir John Burgoyne, alone, unaided and stranded in the American wilderness, capitulated with his army at Saratoga in upper New York State. It was the 'turning point' of the Revolution, which culminated four years later in the British surrender at Yorktown. Creasy wrote of Saratoga: 'Nor can any military event be said to have exercised more important influence upon the future fortunes of mankind...' Who blundered? For nearly two centuries, Lord George Germain, the 'maladroit' minister, has been blamed, together with the Commander-in-Chief, Sir William Howe; but Burgoyne, 'Gentleman Johnny' as his affectionate troops called him, has largely escaped criticism. Only in the late 1960s had a full assessment become possible, by the publication of all the correspondence that passed between these men. Originally published in 1971, from his study of these letters, and by his visit to the campaign area, author Rupert Furneaux questions this long accepted view. The British disaster resulted, he says, not because anyone particularly blundered, or from any 'pigeon-holed' despatch, but rather because no one bargained that thousands of ordinary American citizens would rally to bar Burgoyne's path. Experienced frontier-fighters and skilled marksmen, they mowed down the closely-ranked Redcoats and the German mercenaries, who had all been trained for European battles. Saratoga heralded a new age of warfare, which Europeans took another hundred years to learn. It was also far more than a British defeat; it was an American victory, the decisive battle whereby they won the right to run their own lives without interference from Europe - and with incalculable consequences.

In this provocative study, Paul Atwood attempts to show Americans that their history is one of constant wars of aggression and imperial expansion. In his long teaching career, Atwood has found that most students know virtually nothing about America's involvement in the wars of the 20th century, let alone those prior to World War I. War and Empire aims to correct this, clearly and persuasively explaining US actions in every major war since the declaration of independence. The book shows that, far from being dragged reluctantly into foreign entanglements, America's leaders have always picked its battles in order to increase their influence and power, with little regard for the American soldiers and 'enemy' civilians killed or made to suffer in the process. This book is an eye-opening introduction to the American way of life for undergraduate students of American history, politics and international relations.

The volumes in this set, originally published between 1967 and 2011, available as ebooks for the first time, include succinct, accessible books on two of the most important periods of American history which offer concise treatment of these major historical topics, as well as some lengthier, finest single-volume studies of the American Civil and Revolutionary Wars ever written and an outstanding reference tool in a 2 volume Encyclopedia. Among other things they: Bring central themes and problems into sharper focus. Discuss the pivotal roles played by Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln. Examine the role of medical doctors in the northern campaigns during the revolutionary war. Elucidate the character of the underlying moral and political problem of slavery. Discuss the social and political experience of the civil war whilst examining the centrality of what happened on the battlefield. Evaluate the legacy of the Civil War for America and for the world and emphasize its relationship to many of the dominating themes of modern history - democracy, freedom, equality and nationalism.

Originally published in 1979, this was the first biography of Jonathan Potts, a prominent Pennsylvania Quaker and physician who served in the Continental army during the Revolutionary War. It was also the first study to be published since 1931 of the role of medical doctors in the northern campaigns. No detailed memoir by an army physician or surgeon has survived to document the conditions they faced. The military career of Dr. Potts, reconstructed here from source materials, including first-hand accounts by Potts and his contemporaries provides considerable information to fill this historical gap.

Originally published in 1967 this book tells the full story of the breach between the United States and Great Britain and the pivotal role played by Benjamin Franklin in both the declaration of independence and the American Treaty. Accessibly written, and richly illustrated with half-tones and maps, this is an introductory text which will be of use to both A Level students and as an introductory text for under-graduates.

Originally published in 1986, this book discusses the various meanings which historians have given to the term 'American Revolution'. It can be seen as a revolutionary war of independence from Britain, but also a constitutional and ideological revolution within America. This survey firstly examines the view from Britain and the consequences of the policy of exerting closer financial control over its colonies. It then discusses the colonists' perception of British actions and their responses which were to culminate in the Declaration of Independence. It concludes by examining the continuing revolution within America after the break with England. This will be of interest to A Level and introductory undergraduate course.

Imaginary Friendship is the first in-depth study of the onset of the American Revolution through the prism of friendship, focusing on future US president John Adams and leading Loyalist Jonathan Sewall. The book is part biography, revealing how they shaped each other's progress, and part political history, exploring their intriguing dangerous quest to clean up colonial politics. Literary history examines the personal dimension of discourse, resolving how Adams's presumption of Sewall's authorship of the Loyalist tracts Massachusettensis influenced his own magnum opus, Novanglus. The mystery is not why Adams presumed Sewall was his adversary in 1775 but why he was impelled to answer him.

Originally published in 1933, and written by "America's historian", James Truslow Adams, this 2 volume set tells the story of the rise of the American nation encompassing from economics, religion, social change and politics from settlement to the Great Depression. Due emphasis is given to the inter-connectedness of America with Europe - both in terms of cultural heritage and political and military entanglements. Extensive in size and scope and richly illustrated with half-tones and maps these volumes balance a historical narrative with philosophical interpretation whilst touching on as many aspects of American life and history as possible.

Originally published in 1933, and written by "America's historian", James Truslow Adams, this volume tells the story of the rise of the American nation encompassing economics, religion, social change and politics from settlement to the Civil War. Due emphasis is given to the inter-connectedness of America with Europe - both in terms of cultural heritage and political and military entanglements. Extensive in size and scope and richly illustrated with half-tones and maps these volumes balance a historical narrative with philosophical interpretation whilst touching on as many aspects of American life and history as possible.

An intriguing study of the revolutionary army as a powerful and yet contested symbol of nascent national identity among the American colonies. In spite of various and growing discontents, the British inhabitants of the thirteen North American colonies continued to see themselves as an integral part of the British imperial project right up to the beginning of the AmericanRevolutionary War. By its end eight years later, a distinctive continental identity had developed, brought into being by the manifold stresses of internecine conflict. The Continental Army emerged as the first embodiment of this national consciousness, and Jon Chandler's innovative study charts the various conflicting forces at work in this process. He shows how local and political allegiances were assimilated into a national ideal through various forms of print from newspapers to plays and pictures, and through public rituals of celebration and commemoration, but also how this continental turn was resisted not only by those who had least to gain from the new order - loyalists, slaves, Native Americans and civilians exposed to the worst excesses of the conflict - but also more surprisingly by elements within the army, which increasingly defined itself as a military community distinct from civil society. Nonetheless, as the war unfolded it was the ideas and rituals of the continent which most ordinary Americans absorbed and which would shape the national idealism of the early United States.

Truth's landmark slave narrative chronicles her experiences as a slave in upstate New York and her transformation into an extraordinary abolitionist, feminist, orator, and preacher. Based on the complete 1884 edition, this volume includes the "Book of Life," a collection of letters and sketches about Truth's life written subsequent to the original 1850 publication of the Narrative, and "A Memorial Chapter," a sentimental account of her death.

Discusses the events of the American Revolution, from the hated Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party to the British surrender at Yorktown and the writing of the Constitution. Activities include making a tricorn hat and discovering local history.

During the American Revolutionary War, Rufus Putnam served as the Continental Army's chief military engineer. As designer and supervisor of the construction of major fortifications--including the most indispensable, West Point--his contribution was key to helping American forces drive the British Army from Boston. Several years after the War, Putnam personally founded the first American settlement in the Northwest Territory, which was ceded to the new American nation by Britain. Putnam saw to it that slavery would not be permitted in the State of Ohio, leading the way for Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin to enter the U.S. as free states. This first full-length biography of Putnam in more than 130 years covers his wartime service and his efforts to prevent the expansion of slavery.

In the relations between colonial European traders and the Indians of the southern backcountry, trade was a powerful manipulative tool used by both sides in their attempts to control each other. This anthropological and sociological study examines how European traders sought out native women as cultural instructors, translators, and sexual companions. The network of native women, fur traders, and colonial diplomats functioned as an invisible social, political, and economic web throughout the backcountry. Although this web was an integral part of the colonial struggle for the region, it is often overlooked or ignored in conventional histories.

Women played a key role in this system of economic exchange. They benefitted materially from this arrangement, while the traders enjoyed increased political power as a result of the cohabitation. These Anglo-Indian unions helped to impose Euroamerican values on native societies, and, in part, the women functioned as unofficial diplomats for their people. Colonial governments hoped that the efforts of these frontier traders would impose stability on the tribes, but the profit-seeking of many such traders often resulted in bloody conflict instead.

In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history.

This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.

Wars rarely turn out as expected. This book shows how Britain entered a conflict that it believed could not be lost. The American Patriots were similarly optimistic about their martial prospects. Although they eventually secured independence, it was only with the assistance of France and indirectly Spain, who diverted British resources from the conflict in America, allowing France eventually to deliver a knockout blow at Yorktown. This extensive yet accessible exploration into the War of American Independence provides a clear analysis of why this complex conflict occurred and why it ended as it did, revealing the fragile nature of the American Patriot cause. An essential guide for any history student, including those specializing in war/peace studies and the study of international relations, as well the general reader with an interest in the study of war.

Drawing on original research and firsthand interviews, Conversations with Terrorists offers critical portraits of six Middle Eastern leaders often labeled as terrorists: Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad, Hamas top leader Khaled Meshal, Israeli politician Geula Cohen, Iranian Revolutionary Guard founder Mohsen Sazargara, Hezbollah spiritual advisor Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Fadlallah, and former Afghan Radio and Television Ministry head Malamo Nazamy. Veteran journalist Reese Erlich offers them a chance to explain key issues and to respond to charges leveled by the United States. Critiquing these responses and synthesizing a broad range of material, Erlich shows that yesterday's terrorist is today's national leader, and that today's freedom fighter may become tomorrow's terrorist. He concludes that the global war on terror has diverted public attention from the war's real goal-expanding U.S. influence and interests in the Middle East-and offers policy remedies.

In its early years, the American Republic was far from stable. Conflict and violence, including major land wars, were defining features of the period from the Revolution to the outbreak of the Civil War, as struggles over who would control land and labor were waged across the North American continent. The World of the Revolutionary American Republic brings together original essays from an array of scholars to illuminate the issues that made this era so contested. Drawing on the latest research, the essays examine the conflicts that occurred both within the Republic and between the different peoples inhabiting the continent. Covering issues including slavery, westward expansion, the impact of Revolutionary ideals, and the economy, this collection provides a diverse range of insights into the turbulent era in which the United States emerged as a nation. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, both American and international, The World of the Revolutionary American Republic is an important resource for any scholar of early America.