To mark the 450th book in the Men-at-Arms series we return to the subject of the very first book in the series, which was published nearly 35 years ago. Author of 27 other Men-at-Arms titles Rene Chartrand uses newly discovered material to offer a more modern analysis of the American Provincial Corps in this book, American Loyalist Troops. Packed with new photographs, completely new and up-to-date text and illustrations from Gerry Embleton (the much-loved illustrator of over 60 Osprey titles) this book examines the history of the American volunteers who fought on the side of King George in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783).
In total something between 30,000 and 50,000 of these "Tories" served in dozens of units, on all fronts from Canada to Florida, and many regiments distinguished themselves in battle. After the final British defeat the survivors and their families withdrew, many into Canada, where they continued to provide a loyal militia to defend the Crown territory. This book will provide updated and comprehensive information on unit identities, commanders, strengths, areas of enlistment, combat record, tactics, uniforms and equipment.

In early America, traditional commercial interaction revolved around an entity known as the general store. Unfortunately, most of these elusive small-town shops disappeared from our society without leaving business-related documents behind for scholars to analyze. This gap in the historical knowledge of America has made it difficult to understand the nature of the networks and trade relationships that existed between cities and the surrounding countryside at the time.

Samuel Rex, however, left behind a vastly different legacy. A country storekeeper who operated out of Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania, during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Rex left a surprising array of documents exposing just how he ran his business. In this book, Diane Wenger analyzes the part Rex and others like him played in the overall commercial structure of the Atlantic region.

While Wenger's book has a strong foundation as a work of local history, it draws conclusions with much broader historical implications. The rich set of documents that Samuel Rex left behind provides a means for contesting the established model of how early American commerce functioned, replacing it with a more fine-grained picture of a society in which market forces and community interests could peacefully coexist.

Owen Wister is known to most Americans as the creator of the heroic cowboy in The Virginian (1902). Despite his success as a Western novelist, Wister's failure to write about his native city of Philadelphia has been lamented by many for the loss of a literary "might-have-been." If only, sighed Wister's contemporary Elizabeth Robins Pennell in 1914, the novelist could understand that Philadelphia was as good a subject as the Wild West. Hence the surprise when James Butler uncovered a substantial fragment of a Philadelphia novel, which Wister intended to call Romney. Here, published for the first time, is the complete fragment of Romney together with two of his other unpublished Philadelphia works.

Even in its incomplete state--nearly fifty thousand words--Romney is Wister's longest piece of fiction after The Virginian and Lady Baltimore. Writing at the express command of his friend Theodore Roosevelt, Wister set Romney in Philadelphia (called Monopolis in the novel) during the 1880s, when, as he saw it, the city was passing from the old to a new order. The hero of the story, Romney, is a man of "no social position" who nonetheless rises to the top because he has superior ability. It is thus a novel about the possibilities for meaningful social change in a democracy. Although, alas, the story breaks off before the birth of Romney, Wister gives us much to savor in the existing thirteen chapters. We are treated to delightful scenes at the Bryn Mawr train station, the Bellevue Hotel, and Independence Square, which yield brilliant insights into life on the Main Line, the power of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the insidious effects of political corruption.

Wister's acute analysis in Romney of what differentiates Philadelphia and Boston upper classes is remarkably similar to, but anticipates by more than half a century, the classic study by E. Digby Baltzell in Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia (1979). Like Baltzell, Wister analyzes the urban aristocracy of Boston and Philadelphia, finding in Boston a Puritan drive for achievement and civic service but in Philadelphia a Quaker preference for toleration and moderation, all too often leading to acquiescence and stagnation.

Romney is undoubtedly the best fictional portrayal of "Gilded Age" Philadelphia, brilliantly capturing Wister's vision of old-money, aristocratic society gasping its last before the onrushing vulgarity of the nouveaux riches. It is a novel of manners that does for Philadelphia what Edith Wharton and John Marquand have done for New York and Boston.

This pioneering study confronts three main questions about this era in Mexico City: Were women's roles as narrow and unimportant as has been assumed? To what extent were women dominated by men? Can significant differences be found between younger and older women, married and single, upper class and lower class?

At the successful conclusion of the Revolutionary War, America could look back with pride on the accomplishments of the preceding three decades and look forward with excitement and trepidation to the challenges of shaping its new government. It was at this time that influential groups and people emerged and set the course for the young nation. "Shaping of America, 1783-1815" chronicles and illustrates this important period when America forged its place at home and on the international stage.

The "Almanac" volume describes and interprets the economic, religious and political forces at play.

At the successful conclusion of the Revolutionary War, America could look back with pride on the accomplishments of the preceding three decades and look forward with excitement and trepidation to the challenges of shaping its new government. It was at this time that influential groups and people emerged and set the course for the young nation. "Shaping of America, 1783-1815" chronicles and illustrates this important period when America forged its place at home and on the international stage.

The two "Biographies "volumes focus on key figures of the time, with significant attention given to minorities and women.

At the successful conclusion of the Revolutionary War, America could look back with pride on the accomplishments of the preceding three decades and look forward with excitement and trepidation to the challenges of shaping its new government. It was at this time that influential groups and people emerged and set the course for the young nation. "Shaping of America, 1783-1815" chronicles and illustrates this important period when America forged its place at home and on the international stage.

The "Primary Sources" volume uses documents, diaries, letters, speeches and other sources to explain large events as well as daily life of ordinary citizens.