Any good books on American history specifically the early years
Any good books on American history specifically the early years
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Any good books on American history specifically the early years
Hamilton by Ron Chernow.
You can’t go wrong with Mitchener’s Centennial
1776 by David McCullough, John Adams by David McCullough, Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
I love anything by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Her nonfiction reads like a novel.
Washington by Ron Chernow. Better than Hamilton.
Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
Don’t forget the women! Dearest Friend: A Biography of Abigail Adams (Lynne Withey), Founding Mothers (Cokie Roberts), Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Sojourner Truth)…to name just a few!
Shelby Foote. I love him, his voice, his writing. I can still hear him in my mind. The civil war was his genre.
I, Tituba by Maryse Condé, if you like history about the Salem Witch Trials
A bit later; I enjoyed Destiny of the Republic
I loved Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose, if you’re interested in that time period.
11/22/63 by Stehen King. HAHA
The American Experience, The Barbarous Years, Whirlwind (The American Revolution), American Jezebel
Fiction: Follow the River by James Alexander Thom…Sacajawea by Anna L Waldo …America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray…Dark Eagle: A Novel of Benedict Arnold and the American Revolution by John Ensor Harr…Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini…Rise to Rebellion: A Novel of the American Revolution by Jeff Shaara
Read Follow the River years ago. Amazing book.
Great question! Would be interested in pre-colonial as well.
Well. Possibly not quite what you’re after, but a book worth the read, “the book of negroes”, following a young woman from childhood to adulthood, being taken from Africa by slavers to America just before/during the time of the war of independence.
Barbara Tuchman’s “The First Salute”. Robert Morgan’s “Boone”. “The Island at the Center of the World” by Russell Shorto.
Also – The War That Made America – A Short History of the French & Indian War by Fred Anderson
My father was just telling me about “Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring” and it’s series on Netflix called “Turn”. He really liked it.
I second the above-mentioned Philbrick’s Mayflower and Shorto’s Island at the Center of the World. And I’d recommend Joseph Ellis’ American Sphinx, which is a Jefferson bio. Also The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton, Golden Hill by Francis Spufford,
Prairie Fires
Killer Angels by Michael Shaara