Here are 100 books that A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier fans have personally recommended if you like A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire

Jack N. Rakove Author Of Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution

From my list on the Revolutionary War and why the British lost it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became a historian of the American Revolution back in the early 1970s and have been working on that subject ever since. Most of my writings pivot on national politics, the origins of the Constitution, and James Madison. But explaining why the Revolution occurred and why it took the course it did remain subjects that still fascinate me.

Jack's book list on the Revolutionary War and why the British lost it

Jack N. Rakove Why Jack loves this book

The vast majority of books on the Revolutionary War are written by Americans, and they predictably focus on the conflict from the Patriot side. But throughout the war, the strategic initiative rested with Britain, not the United States. Through a series of brilliant biographical chapters, O’Shaughnessy traces the history of the war and the evolution of British strategy, and its ultimate failure, from the imperial side.

By Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Men Who Lost America as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The loss of America was a stunning and unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been to blame, but were they? This intriguing book makes a different argument. Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men who directed the British dimension of the war, historian Andrew O'Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve their surprising victory. In interlinked biographical chapters, the author follows the course of the war from the perspectives of King George…


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America

Tom Shachtman Author Of The Founding Fortunes: How the Wealthy Paid for and Profited from America's Revolution

From my list on lesser-known figures in the American Revolution and early years.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m Tom Shachtman, author of many nonfiction books about American and world history, including three on overlooked aspects of the Revolutionary War.  I believe that America’s Revolution belongs to all of us, native-born and immigrant, old and young, and it does so today just as much as it did a hundred and two hundred years ago; but too many myths have grown up about it, obscuring some of its most interesting people and aspects. My aim is to recover those people and aspects, and in writing about them to broaden our understanding of our common heritage.

Tom's book list on lesser-known figures in the American Revolution and early years

Tom Shachtman Why Tom loves this book

The story of the mostly urban radicals – the unknowns -- who began the Revolution, and how they and their democratic passions were gradually but inevitably “tamed” to create a Constitution and a governable country.

By Gary B. Nash ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Unknown American Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this audacious recasting of the American Revolution, distinguished historian Gary Nash offers a profound new way of thinking about the struggle to create this country, introducing readers to a coalition of patriots from all classes and races of American society. From millennialist preachers to enslaved Africans, disgruntled women to aggrieved Indians, the people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of this country's birth, they laid down ideas that have become part of our inheritance and ideals toward which we still strive today.


Book cover of The Wealth of Nations

Sylvana Tomaselli Author Of Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion, and Politics

From my list on the eighteenth-century you should read for yourself.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have had the privilege to teach the history of political theory from Plato to today for decades and to discuss texts such as the five I mentioned with very gifted students. No matter how often I return to such works, I always find something new in them and it is a pleasure to see how students learn to love reading for themselves what can be daunting works, once they overcome the fear of opening the great works and the initial challenge of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century prose.

Sylvana's book list on the eighteenth-century you should read for yourself

Sylvana Tomaselli Why Sylvana loves this book

Even though Adam Smith is often said to be the father of all that is good or bad about capitalism very few people have read his famous Wealth of Nations. Why? Well, 1) they think they already know what’s in it: no government intervention in the economy, thank you. 2) It is two volumes. 3) It must be very dreary because it is about economics, and 4) they are not good at economics or math.  

But read it for yourself, and you will find that it is readable, nuanced, and you can skip the bits that you can’t make out, enjoy the examples, and decide for yourself what he actually argued and whether you agree with it or not.

By Adam Smith ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Wealth of Nations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. First published in 1776, the book offers one of the world's first collected descriptions of what builds nations' wealth, and is today a fundamental work in classical economics. By reflecting upon the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the book touches upon such broad topics as the division of labour, productivity, and free markets.


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Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.

Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…

Book cover of Jefferson's Treasure: How Albert Gallatin Saved the New Nation from Debt

Tom Shachtman Author Of The Founding Fortunes: How the Wealthy Paid for and Profited from America's Revolution

From my list on lesser-known figures in the American Revolution and early years.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m Tom Shachtman, author of many nonfiction books about American and world history, including three on overlooked aspects of the Revolutionary War.  I believe that America’s Revolution belongs to all of us, native-born and immigrant, old and young, and it does so today just as much as it did a hundred and two hundred years ago; but too many myths have grown up about it, obscuring some of its most interesting people and aspects. My aim is to recover those people and aspects, and in writing about them to broaden our understanding of our common heritage.

Tom's book list on lesser-known figures in the American Revolution and early years

Tom Shachtman Why Tom loves this book

Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and their secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, did as much as Alexander Hamilton to create the unique blend of capitalism and democracy that is the United States of America – a story that more Americans ought to know.

By Gregory May ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Jefferson's Treasure as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WALL STREET JOURNAL review: "One of Mr. May's strengths is his ability to convey a vivid sense of the times. When Britain attacked the U.S. naval frigate Chesapeake in 1807, Gallatin received a message from Jefferson bidding him to come in haste. 'If you arrive before half after three, come and take a family dinner with me,' Jefferson pleaded, a poignant reminder that, in Jefferson's time, official duties set with the sun... [May] credits Gallatin with ushering in an era of official frugality and mourns that we have "lost sight of the pragmatic, liberal republicanism he practiced"

George Washington had…


Book cover of The American Revolution: A World War

Ray Raphael Author Of Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past

From my list on deepening your view of the American Revolution.

Why am I passionate about this?

When writing my first of my ten books on the Founding Era, A People’s History of the American Revolution, I came across an amazing uprising not celebrated in the traditional saga of our nation’s birth: the people of Massachusetts, everywhere outside of Boston, actually cast off British authority in 1774, the year before Lexington and Concord. How could this critical episode have been so neglected? Who’s the gatekeeper here, anyway? That’s when I began to explore how events of those times morphed into stories, and how those stories mask what actually happened—the theme of Founding Myths.  

Ray's book list on deepening your view of the American Revolution

Ray Raphael Why Ray loves this book

This book is a game changer. In the traditional telling of the American Revolution, rebellious colonists were the sole agents, save for a bit of help from France. Here, scholars from Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and India, as well as the United States, broaden our perspective. The volume is lavishly produced with historical artwork by the Smithsonian, but this is no ordinary coffee table book. In vivid detail, you will learn that from its very outset, our nation was not a world unto itself. From the nearby Caribbean to Europe to far-away India, the American Revolution played out on a global stage. 

By David K. Allison (editor) , Larrie D. Ferreiro (editor) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The American Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An illustrated collection of essays that explores the international dimensions of the American Revolution and its legacies in both America and around the world

The American Revolution: A World War argues that contrary to popular opinion, the American Revolution was not just a simple battle for independence in which the American colonists waged a "David versus Goliath" fight to overthrow their British rulers. Instead, the essays in the book illustrate how the American Revolution was a much more complicated and interesting conflict. It was an extension of larger skirmishes among the global superpowers in Europe, chiefly Britain, Spain, France, and…


Book cover of Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution

Richard Bell Author Of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World

From my list on the American Revolution as a World War.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up outside London in the 1980s and 1990s, I learned almost nothing about the American Revolution. After all, who wants to teach schoolchildren that their nation once fought a war against farmers with muskets—and lost? I didn’t discover the subject until senior year of college, but when I did, it turned my life upside down. Long story short, I now teach the Revolution every semester to college students in the United States. So I’ve been reading hungrily about the topic for decades now—trying to catch up on lost time—and these books are the five that have convinced me that America’s founding fight was actually a world war in all but name. 

Richard's book list on the American Revolution as a World War

Richard Bell Why Richard loves this book

Reading Independence Lost made the American Revolution, something I’d been studying and teaching about for twenty years, feel startlingly new—and I recommend it to everyone so they can feel its magic for themselves.

It’s no wonder it won so many prizes! What’s captivating is how deftly Kathleen DuVal shifts the focus away from the familiar sites in Boston and Philadelphia to the Gulf Coast, revealing a world of Native nations, Spanish governors, free Black strivers, and Creole merchants all swept up in their own fights for independence—and all defining ‘independence’ differently. 

By Kathleen DuVal ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Independence Lost as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A rising-star historian offers a significant new global perspective on the Revolutionary War with the story of the conflict as seen through the eyes of the outsiders of colonial society

Winner of the Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Award • Winner of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey History Prize • Finalist for the George Washington Book Prize

Over the last decade, award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal has revitalized the study of early America’s marginalized voices. Now, in Independence Lost, she recounts an untold story as rich and significant as that of…


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Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence

Jack N. Rakove Author Of Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution

From my list on the Revolutionary War and why the British lost it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became a historian of the American Revolution back in the early 1970s and have been working on that subject ever since. Most of my writings pivot on national politics, the origins of the Constitution, and James Madison. But explaining why the Revolution occurred and why it took the course it did remain subjects that still fascinate me.

Jack's book list on the Revolutionary War and why the British lost it

Jack N. Rakove Why Jack loves this book

This is a classic and provocative set of essays by an eminent historian who asked whether and in what ways the War for Independence resembled modern revolutionary wars. It led every serious historian of the Revolution to realize that the war was not simply a conflict between armies but a political struggle to secure the loyalty of the civilian population.

By John Shy ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A People Numerous and Armed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Americans like to think of themselves as a peaceful and peace-loving people, and in remembering their own revolutionary past, American historians have long tended to focus on colonial origins and Constitutional aftermath, neglecting the fact that the American Revolution was a long, hard war. In this book, John Shy shifts the focus to the Revolutionary War and explores the ways in which the experience of that war was entangled with both the causes and the consequences of the Revolution itself. This is not a traditional military chronicle of battles and campaigns, but a series of essays that recapture the social,…


Book cover of This Glorious Cause: The Adventures of Two Company Officers in Washington's Army

Ray Raphael Author Of Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past

From my list on deepening your view of the American Revolution.

Why am I passionate about this?

When writing my first of my ten books on the Founding Era, A People’s History of the American Revolution, I came across an amazing uprising not celebrated in the traditional saga of our nation’s birth: the people of Massachusetts, everywhere outside of Boston, actually cast off British authority in 1774, the year before Lexington and Concord. How could this critical episode have been so neglected? Who’s the gatekeeper here, anyway? That’s when I began to explore how events of those times morphed into stories, and how those stories mask what actually happened—the theme of Founding Myths.  

Ray's book list on deepening your view of the American Revolution

Ray Raphael Why Ray loves this book

What about wives left behind when their husbands marched off to war? This neglected gem showcases the letters between Joseph Hodgkins, a Minuteman who answered the Lexington Alarm, and his wife Sarah, at home with three small children. Joseph reenlists, not once but twice: “If we Due not Exarte our selves in this gloris. Cause our all is gon and we made slaves of for Ever.” But with each succeeding term, Sarah’s letters become more heart-wrenching: “You may think I am too free in expressing my mind. I look for you almost every day but I dont alow myself to depend on anything for I find there is nothing to be depended upon but troble and disapointments. I hope you will Let Some body else take your Place.” Can such a marriage survive? 

By Herbert Treadwell Wade , Robert A. Lively ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked This Glorious Cause as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"As I am ingaged in this glories Cause I am will to go whare I am Called"-so Joseph Hodgkins, a shoemaker of Ipswich, Massachusetts, declared to his wife the purpose that sustained him through four crucial years of the American Revolution. Hodgkins and his fellow townsman Nathaniel Wade, a carpenter, turned out for the Lexington alarm, fought at Bunker Hill, retreated from Long Island past White Plains, attacked at Trenton and Princeton, and enjoyed triumph at Saratoga. One of them wintered at Valley Forge, and the other was promoted to command at West Point on the night that Benedict Arnold…


Book cover of Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During the American Revolution

William L. Kidder Author Of Defending Fort Stanwix: A Story of the New York Frontier in the American Revolution

From my list on American Revolution in New York.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child and then as a secondary school history teacher, I wanted to help people understand each other. I always told my students that it was less important to memorize dates and facts than it was to explore history to help them understand what it is to be a human being. They should know that humans have always faced challenges and found good or bad ways of dealing with them–it is not just in their time. The books I have listed here on the Revolutionary history of the New York area created an even greater passion for understanding the human condition.

William's book list on American Revolution in New York

William L. Kidder Why William loves this book

This book helped me understand an element in my family history, as well as promoting my understanding of the American Revolution in New York and other states. Aside from my personal interest in my family, this book provided many stories of the diverse experiences of women who followed the American Army and their valuable contributions to it.

As Mayer so eloquently reveals, the Continental Army, like other armies of the time, was a traveling community that included soldiers’ families, merchants, and various other people who helped the soldiers. Mayer’s work clearly shows that one cannot understand the experience of the American Revolution without understanding the varied people who traveled with the army.

By Holly A. Mayer ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Belonging to the Army as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Belonging to the Army reveals the identity and importance of the civilians now referred to as camp followers, whom Holly A. Mayer calls the forgotten revolutionaries of the War of American Independence. These merchants, contractors, family members, servants, government officers, and military employees, provided necessary supplies, services and emotional support to the troops of the Continental army. Mayer describes their activities and demonstrates how they made encampments livable communities and played a fundamental role in the survival and ultimate success of the Continental Army. She also considers how the army wanted to be rid of the followers but were unsuccessful,…


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Book cover of Old Man Country

Old Man Country by Thomas R. Cole,

This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.

In these and other intimate conversations, the book…

Book cover of Gingerbread for Liberty!: How a German Baker Helped Win the American Revolution

Beth Anderson Author Of Cloaked in Courage: Uncovering Deborah Sampson, Patriot Soldier

From my list on children’s stories on the American Revolution.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an educator, I’ve experienced the power of true stories to engage readers, widen their world, spur thinking, and support content areas. I’ve learned plenty from these books, too! As an author, I’m fascinated with many aspects of the American Revolution that I never learned about as a student. Researching this time period has revealed much more than men at war. The revolution affected every aspect of life—a “world turned upside-down.” Today, we’re fortunate to have a range of stories that help kids understand that history is about people much like them facing the challenges of their time and place. 

Beth's book list on children’s stories on the American Revolution

Beth Anderson Why Beth loves this book

A gingerbread baker had a role in the American Revolution? I had to know more!

I love stories of people behind the scenes, everyday people like us, so often overlooked. These stories let us know that we’re all a part of history. In this book, a German immigrant uses his baking talents to support George Washington’s troops.

Recently, I’ve learned with my research for an upcoming book about how difficult it was to supply the Continental Army with food. Starving soldiers had to go out and forage for food—one of the many everyday struggles of the time that brings history home. I also love that it’s a story of generosity. Rockliff’s lively books never fail to engage me as a reader. 

By Mara Rockliff , Vincent X Kirsch (illustrator) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gingerbread for Liberty! as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Christopher Ludwick was a German-born American patriot with a big heart and a talent for baking. When cries of “Revolution!” began, Christopher was determined to help General George Washington and his hungry troops. Not with muskets or cannons, but with gingerbread!     Cheerfully told by Mara Rockliff and brought to life by Vincent Kirsch’s inventive cut-paper illustrations, Gingerbread for Liberty is the story of an unsung hero of the Revolutionary War who changed the course of history one loaf at a time.


Book cover of The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire
Book cover of The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America
Book cover of The Wealth of Nations

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Interested in the American Revolution, the Continental Army, and the American Revolutionary War?