Friday, February 7, 2014

Quick and Dirty American Revolution Book List

I recently received a question on twitter about quality non-fiction on the American Revolution. Sadly, I only have about five or six works on the subject on my shelves. That pretty amazing, but I do have some good lists of material largely culled from sample PhD comps lists. The first half of U.S. History is not one of my fields (Modern U.S., Modern Europe, Military and Naval, and Asia), but it's important to have more than a passing familiarity when you teach as an adjunct. So here goes the list. Hopefully it will be helpful. If readers have other complementary suggestions, they are welcome (and will go on the list). There are a large number of great books that are not included here, but probably should be.



Colonial and General



  • Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition
  • Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom:  The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia 
  • Allen Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves:  The Development of Southern Cultures in Chesapeake, 1680-1800
  • Winthrop D. Jordan, White over Black:  American Attitudes toward the Negro,1550-1812
  • Gary Nash, Red, White, and Black:  The Peoples of Early America
  • David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment:  Popular Religious Belief in Early New England
  • Philip Greven, The Protestant Temperament:  Patterns of Child-Rearing, Religious Experience, and Self in Early America
  • Edmund Morgan, Visible Saints
  • David Hackett Fisher, Albion’s Seed
  • George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards
  • Alfred Crosby, Columbian Exchange
  • Perry Miller, Errand in the Wilderness
  • Joyce Chaplin, Subject Matter
  • Susan Parrish, American Curiosity
  • Daniel Richter, Facing East from Indian Country
  • William Cronon, Changes in the Land:  Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England
  • James Axtell, Beyond 1492
  • Stephen Foster, The Long Argument
  • Michael Winship, Seers of God
  • Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith:  Christianizing the American People
  • Christine Heyrman, Southern Cross
  • Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia
  • Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives
  • David Hall, Worlds of Wonder
  • Jill Lepore, The Name of War
  • Jennifer Morgan, Laboring Women
  • Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone
  • Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom:  The Ordeal of Colonial
  • Philip Morgan, Slave Counterpoint   
  • Jeffrey Young, Domesticating Slavery
  • Kathleen Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, Anxious Patriarchs
  • Richard Godbeer, Sexual Revolution in Early America
  • John Sweet, Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North


Revolution

  • Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution           
  • Bernard Bailyn,  The Origins of American Politics
  • Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America
  • Gary Nash, The Urban Crucible
  • Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson
  • Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution
  • Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War:  The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783
  • Merrill Jensen, The Founding of the Nation 
  • Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum:  The Intellectual Origins of the
  • Constitution
  • Christopher Brown, Moral Capital: The Foundations of British Abolitionism
  • Jack Rakove, Original Meanings
  • Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic
  • Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic
  • Caroline Winterer, The Mirror of Antiquity
  • Rosemarie Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash
  • David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes
  • John Lauritz Larson, Internal Improvement
  • Bruce Dain, A Hideous Monster of the Mind: American Race Theory in the Early Republic.
  • Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution
  • Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity 
  • David Shields, Civil Tongues and Polite Letters
  • Drew McCoy, The Elusive Republic:  Political Economy in Jeffersonian America 
  • George R. Taylor, The Transportation Revolution
  • Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution
More Colonial North American Books are here: http://home.uchicago.edu/~jacevedo/colonialAmericareadinglist.html

Colonial and American Revolution Military History

  • Hagan, Kenneth. This People's Navy. (1990)
  • Anderson, Fred. A People's Army. (1984)
  • Higginbotham, Don. The War for American Independence. (1971)
  • Mackesy, Piers. The War for America, 1775-1783. (1964)
  • Alan Taylor, American Colonies
  • Robert Middlekauf, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1763-1789
  • Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters:  The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800
  • Richard White, The Middle Ground:  Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region 1650-1815
  • Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense, A Military History of the United States
  • Anderson, Fred. The Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2000.
  • Bidwell, Shelford and Dominick Graham, Firepower: The British Army Weapons and Theories of War, 1904-1945. New York: Pen and Sword, 2005.
  • Bodle, Wayne. The Valley Forge Winter: Civilians and Soldiers in War. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.
  • Brumwell, Stephen. Redcoats: The British Soldier and the War in the Americas, 1755-1763. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  • Carp, E. Wayne. To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775-1783. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
  • Chet, Guy. Conquering the American Wilderness: The Triumph of European Warfare in the Colonial Northeast. Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2003.
  • Cobb, Richard. The People's Armies: the Armées Révolutionnaires, Instrument of the Terror in the Departments, April 1793 to Floreal Year II. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
  • Corvisier, André. Armies and Societies in Europe, 1494-1789. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.
  • Cox, Caroline. A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and Sacrifice in George Washington's Army. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
  • Cress, Lawrence. Citizens in Arms: The Army and the Militia in American Society to the War of 1812. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.
  • Cunliffe, Marcus. Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America 1775-1865. Rev. ed. New York: Free Press, 1974.
  • Grenier, John. The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607-1814. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  • Higginbotham, Don. War and Society in Revolutionary America: The Wider Dimensions of Conflict. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.
  • Knouff, Gregory T. The Soldiers’ Revolution: Pennsylvanians in Arms and the Forging of Early American Identity. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.
  • Lee, Wayne E. Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina: The Culture of Violence in Riot and War. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.
  • Martin, James Kirby and Mark Edward Lender. A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763-1789. Arlington Heights, IL: H. Davidson, 1982.
  • Mayer, Holly. Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community during the American Revolution. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.
  • McDonnell, Michael A. The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
  • Melvoin, Richard I. New England Outpost: War and Society in Colonial Deerfield. New York: Norton, 1989.
  • Neimeyer, Charles. America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
  • Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750- 1800. New York: Cornell University Press, 1996.
  • Piecuch, Jim. Three Peoples, One King: Loyalists, Indians, and Slaves in the Revolutionary South, 1775-1782. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008.
  • Resch, John and Walter Sargent, eds. War & Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization and Home Fronts. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007.
  • Rosswurm, Steven. Arms, Country, and Class: The Philadelphia Militia and "Lower Sort" During the American Revolution, 1775-1783. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987.
  • Silver, Peter. Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America. New York: Norton, 2008.
  • Ward, Matthew C. Breaking the Backcountry: Seven Years’ War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754- 1765. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003.
  • Zelner, Kyle F. A Rabble in Arms: Massachusetts Towns and Militiamen during King Philip's War. New York: New York University Press, 2009.

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