In this 250th year of the founding of the United States as a democratic republic, I wanted to be immersed in the history of the era. In this book, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Joseph Ellis uses primary sources (letters written by the founders) to bring that era to life. This book examines the great contradiction between slavery and the values of our revolution. Why didn't the founders abolish slavery when they wrote our nation's constitution? Why indeed did they make a conscious decision not to deal with this issue when so many of the delegates to the constitutional convention recognized that slave-making was incompatible with the democracy they were forging? This book answers those questions and is a valuable addition to our nation's history.
A major new history from our most trusted voice on the Revolutionary era, the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Founding Brothers and the National Book Award winner American Sphinx, and featured in THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, a film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt, on PBS.
An astounding look at how America’s founders—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Adams—regarded the issue of slavery as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. A daring and important work that ultimately reckons with the two great failures of America’s founding: the failure to end slavery and the failure to avoid Indian removal.
Reading this book was part of my personal celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States as a democratic republic. Thankfully, handwritten letters were the primary means of communication during the 1770s and 80s when the founders were creating our form of government. In this Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, historian Joseph J. Ellis uses letters from the key founders (George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison) to put readers into their minds and hearts. With these primary sources, Ellis makes readers privy to our founders' concerns, angst, and intentions in their own words.
In this landmark work of history, the National Book Award—winning author of American Sphinx explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals–Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison–confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation.
The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade that followed, the Founding Fathers–re-examined here as Founding Brothers–combined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the content of the Constitution to create the practical workings of our government. Through an analysis of six fascinating episodes–Hamilton and Burr’s deadly…
I have always been intrigued by the little tidbits about Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, one of our country's founders, that I've read or seen in TV programs. In this 250th anniversary of the United States, I decided to read this biography of Abigail by historian Woody Holton, which won the Bancroft Prize. Using handwritten letters between Abigail and her husband, her sisters, her children, and other members of her family, Holton brings this fascinating woman to life. At a time when women were not recognized as equal to men and had no rights to property or a full education, Abigail emerges as an advocate for educating women at the same level as men. Although the word "feminist" was not used during the revolutionary and founding era of the United States, Abigail was a strong woman, vehemently opposed to sex discrimination, and, later in her life, argued for ending racial discrimination in a boys' school. She was a shrewd investor, political strategist, and, in effect, a co-equal partner with her husband, who admittedly depended on her guidance, advice, and management of the household and his business ventures during his many assignments in Europe before he became the second president of the United States. In her letters, Abigail, reveals her opinions of Jefferson and Franklin, and life in France and England during the years she spent abroad with her husband. Amazingly, she started an import business of her own and, through her investments, built a greater fortune than her husband. Although women were barred from politics, Abigail functioned as an influential politician in the crucible of the founding of the United States.
In this new, vivid, nuanced portrait, now in paperback, prize-winning historian Woody Holton uses original sources and letters for the first time in a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams's life story and of women's roles in the creation of the republic.
In this vivid new biography of Abigail Adams, the most illustrious woman of the founding era, Bancroft Award–winning historian Woody Holton offers a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams’s life story and of women’s roles in the creation of the republic.
Using previously overlooked documents from numerous archives, Abigail Adams shows that the wife of the second president of the United…
We learn history in various ways--from letters, videos, speeches, and other primary sources. But fiction also provides insights into history. I wrote these short stories to depict life in the rural South when racial segregation was the law of the land, governing relationships between blacks and whites from birth to death. Caught in a web of white supremacy, blacks created ways of handling this racist system and whites benefited from the skin-color prejudice that they believed was their birthright to the top of the social and economic ladder. Segregation, which was based on the lie of white supremacy, created a situation in which nobody was free to express their full humanity. It was a time of tension, conflict, injustice, violence, unfulfilled friendships, and wounded love. Our country still suffers from the leftovers of this brutal system.
By revisiting through fiction the racist culture they depict, I hope these old school southern stories can illuminate how tightly racism was interwoven with the most mundane activities of daily life. Perhaps this fictional history may offer insights and suggest avenues for healing the sick legacy of racism that continues to wound our lives.
