Revolution & Founding

A culminating work on the American Founding by one of its leading historians, The Cause rethinks the American Revolution as we have known it....

During the summer of 1776, a British incursion from Canada loomed. In response, citizen soldiers of the newly independent nation mounted a heroic defense. Patriots constructed a small fleet of gunboats on Lake Champlain in northern New York....

Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton....

Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings....

In the darkest days of the American Revolution, Francis Marion and his band of militia freedom fighters kept hope alive for the patriot cause during the critical British southern campaign....

In this powerful, epic biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams....

The number one New York Times best seller by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story that's "as resonant today as ever" (The Wall Street Journal) - the settling of the Northwest Territory....

The must-have companion to Bill O'Reilly's historical docudrama Legends and Lies: The Patriots, an exciting and eye-opening look at the Revolutionary War through the lives of its leaders....

From the massively popular podcaster and New York Times best-selling author comes the story of the Marquis de Lafayette's lifelong quest to protect the principles of democracy, told through the lens of the three revolutions he participated in....

Killing England chronicles the path to independence in gripping detail, taking the listener from the battlefields of America to the royal courts of Europe....

The last king of America, George III, has been ridiculed as a complete disaster who frittered away the colonies and went mad in his old age. The truth is much more nuanced and fascinating - and will completely change the way listeners and historians view his reign and legacy....

This program includes a bonus conversation with the authors. In 1776, an elite group of soldiers were handpicked to serve as George Washington’s bodyguards. Washington trusted them; relied on them. But unbeknownst to Washington, some of them were part of a treasonous plan....

In this major new history of the Continental Army's Grand Forage of 1778, award-winning military historian Ricardo A. Herrera uncovers what daily life was like for soldiers during the darkest days of the American Revolution: the Valley Forge winter....

An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic - Adams, Burr, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and Washington....

The explosive true saga of the legendary figure Daniel Boone and the bloody struggle for America's frontier by two best-selling authors at the height of their writing power - Bob Drury and Tom Clavin....

Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War.....

Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America....

In the opening volume of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns his keen eye to pre-Revolutionary Boston and the spark that ignited the American Revolution....

The extraordinary life of James Monroe: Soldier, senator, diplomat, and the last Founding Father to hold the presidency, a man who helped transform 13 colonies into a vibrant and mighty republic....

Rick Atkinson recounts the first 21 months of America’s violent war for independence, from the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777....

What causes people to forsake their country and take arms against it? What prompts their neighbors, hardly distinguishable in station or success, to defend that country against the rebels?  That is the question H. W. Brands answers....

In this gripping chronicle of America's struggle for independence, award-winning historian John Ferling transports listeners to the grim realities of that war....

Between 1785 and 1812, a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births)....

In best selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us...

In The Words That Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered....

The urgent need to honor the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence came to Douglas MacKinnon, fittingly enough, on the Fourth of July. While doing research for a column meant to remind the American people of that date’s critical importance, he came across example after example of those from the left and the far left—be they in the mainstream media, activists, or anarchists—calling for not only the “canceling” of the Fourth of July, but the continued smearing, censorship, and canceling of our Founding Fathers.

In this major new history of the Continental Army's Grand Forage of 1778, award-winning military historian Ricardo A. Herrera uncovers what daily life was like for soldiers during the darkest days of the American Revolution: the Valley Forge winter. Here, the army launched its largest and riskiest operation—not a bloody battle against British forces but a campaign to feed itself and prevent starvation or dispersal during the long encampment. Herrera brings to light the army's herculean efforts to feed itself, support local and Continental governments, and challenge the British Army.

In The Birth of the Republic, 1763-89, Edmund S. Morgan shows how the challenge of British taxation started Americans on a search for constitutional principles to protect their freedom, and eventually led to the Revolution. By demonstrating that the founding fathers' political philosophy was not grounded in theory, but rather grew out of their own immediate needs, Morgan paints a vivid portrait of how the founders' own experiences shaped their passionate convictions, and these in turn were incorporated into the Constitution and other governmental documents. 

Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.

James Madison (who lived from March 16, 1751 to June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, expansionist, theorist, and founding father who worked as the United States' fourth president from 1809 to 1817. For his essential role in the creation and big promotion of the US Constitution and the US Bill of Rights, he's referred to as the "Father of the Constitution". From 1801 till 1809, he functioned as the fifth Secretary of State of the United States, coauthoring The Federalist Documents, and cofounding the Democratic-Republican Party.

This volume will showcase the international grand design led by Benjamin Franklin that manifested in the establishment of the American republic and trace the next 130 years of world history as the USA was targeted for destruction by oligarchical forces from London and also from within leading up to the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. 

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson was a broken man. Reeling from the loss of his wife and stung from a political scandal during the Revolutionary war, he needed to remake himself. Wandering through Europe, Jefferson saw and learned as much as he could, ultimately bringing his knowledge home to a young America. There, he would rise to power and shape a nation. More than two hundred years later, Derek Baxter, a devotee of American history, stumbles on an obscure travel guide written by Jefferson—Hints for Americans Traveling Through Europe—as he's going through his own personal crisis. 

Thomas Paine was a political activist, theorist, political theorist, and revolutionary who was born in England. He wrote two of the most popular handouts at the beginning of the American Revolution, Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776 - 1783) and helped motivate patriots to announce independence from Great Britain in 1776. His thoughts echoed the knowledge's global human rights concepts.

John Adams was the second president of the United States, serving from 1797 to 1801. He was an American leader, lawyer, diplomat, author, and Founding Father. He was the first vice president of the US and a leader of the American Revolution, which caused the nation's independence from Great Britain. Adams kept a journal and communicated with certain crucial individuals in early American history, including his marriage partner and consultant Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

The story of two Revolutionary-era teenagers who defy their Loyalist families to marry radical patriots, Henry Knox and Benedict Arnold, and are forever changed