Revolutionary Summer
The Birth of American Independence
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A distinctive portrait of the crescendo moment in American history from the Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian
“Accessible and electric.... [Ellis] crisply covers the decisive and improbable events of 1776.... [A] dramatic slice of history.” —USA Today
The summer months of 1776 witnessed the most consequential events in the story of our country’s founding. While the thirteen colonies came together and agreed to secede from the British Empire, the British were dispatching the largest armada ever to cross the Atlantic to crush the rebellion in the cradle. The Continental Congress and the Continental Army were forced to make decisions on the run, improvising as history congealed around them.
In a brilliant and seamless narrative, Ellis meticulously examines the most influential figures in this propitious moment, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Britain’s Admiral Lord Richard and General William Howe. He weaves together the political and military experiences as two sides of a single story, and shows how events on one front influenced outcomes on the other.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
If we must have another work on this shop-worn subject, Pulitzer and National Book Award-winner Ellis (for Founding Brothers and American Sphinx, respectively) is the one to write it his latest is now the definitive book on the revolutionary events of the summer of 1776. Ellis's prose is characteristically seductive, his insights frequent, his sketches of people and events captivating, and his critical facility always alive, even when he's praising Washington and faulting British military strategy. Lightly applying what we've learned from our own recent wars, Ellis argues that Washington knew what, for example, the North Vietnamese later understood: "His goal was not to win the war but rather to not lose it." Thanks to Washington's preservation of the Continental Army, which he accomplished through both sheer luck and brilliant command on Long Island and Manhattan in these critical summer months, the former colonies held on to a chance to win their independence. Another brilliantly told story, carried along on solid interpretive grounds, by one of our best historians of the early nation. 8 pages of color photos & 3 maps. 125,000-copy announced first printing.
