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.
By Tom Shachtman
In The Founding Fortunes, historian Tom Shachtman reveals the ways in which a dozen notable Revolutionaries deeply affected the finances and birth of the new country while making and losing their fortunes. While history teaches that successful revolutions depend on participation by the common man, the establishment of a stable and independent United States first required wealthy colonials uniting to disrupt the very system that had enriched them, and then funding a very long war. While some fortunes were made during the war at the expense of the poor, many of the wealthy embraced the goal of obtaining for their poorer countrymen unprecedented equality of opportunity, along with independence.
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By Joseph Plumb Martin
The diary of an ordinary soldier who served from July 1776 through the victory at Yorktown in 1781, this book is a real eye-opener and a counterweight to the thousands of books about George Washington, his generals, and the political thinkers of the era.
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By Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy
This deeply researched book turns our understanding of the era upside down by showing that King George III, British generals, and British political figures did as much to lose the Revolution as Americans did to win it.
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By Gary B. Nash
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.
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By Adam Smith
The economist’s very readable masterwork, published in 1776, was based in large part on his research into the economics of the British-American relationship. It provides an unparalleled understanding of why America revolted, and why the Revolution was bound to succeed.
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By Gregory May
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.
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