100 books like American Honor

When I wanted to start understanding the culture of the Continental Army, this was the first book I read. Cox shows that General Washington wanted a hierarchical army, modeled on the British system, with gentlemen to lead the way as officers. He got much of what he wanted. Officers were recruited differently, rewarded differently, and punished differently than enlisted men. They experienced illness and injury differently (they were much more likely to be cared for in a private home, not left to suffer in camp), and they even died differently, with their names recorded for posterity while ordinary soldiers rarely rated a personal mention. Still, soldiers pushed back, not always accepting their lowly status, a key source of tension in an army fighting for liberty.

A classic statement of the mentality of the men who fought the American Revolution, A Revolutionary People at War documents how the enthusiasm of the war’s early days, the “rage militaire” in Royster’s memorable phrase, waxed and waned during the brutal conflict as soldiers and civilians settled into an uneasy relationship often in danger of collapsing into anarchy or a military despotism as everyone feared. Royster seems to have read every scrap a soldier or officer produced across the war’s 8 years, and researching the book in the 1970s, he someone kept track of everything, deploying a deft quote time after time, without the aid of a computer. How?

The men who fought the American Revolution were often young, in their teens and twenties, and the war coincided with their transition to adulthood, interrupting the traditional passage into beginning a career and forming a family. Ruddiman recaptures what it meant for the revolution to happen not just at a particular time in the nation’s history but at a particular time in the lives of the men who fought it. For officers, the war was an unmatched opportunity to enhance their social status because it cemented their reputation as gentlemen—especially when they really weren’t genteel by any other standard. It’s a reminder that status mattered a lot, even in an army fighting against aristocracy.

One of the most interesting people I met in my research was Benjamin Gilbert, a young officer from Massachusetts, whose letters were edited and published for the first time in 1989. Gilbert writes openly about the trials and tribulations of camp life, including his attempts to woo the daughters of local gentlemen—and his visits to houses of ill repute. On one furlough home, Gilbert got a girl pregnant, and a recurring storyline in the letters is his attempt to weasel out of marrying her. Though full of colorful details, there’s one major way Gilbert failed me as an author: he was present in camp during the climactic moment of the Newburgh Conspiracy—Washington’s speech to the officers—but he says nothing about what happened. Come on, Lieutenant Gilbert. Think of the historians!

Next to Franklin, Thomas Jefferson is surely the most inventive, innovative member of the American Revolutionary pantheon. He is known for his powerful formulations of revolutionary ideas—in the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and his inaugural address as third President of the United States. These contributions rested on deep and disciplined study in the human sciences, including history, geography, ethnography, political economy, as well as applied sciences such as horticulture, viticulture, and architecture. In their learned meditation on the life and thought of this most learned of American founders, Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf offer a fresh perspective on Jefferson.

In so many ways, he embodied the cutting-edge values of the American Revolution, but Jefferson also embodied the contradictions of the Revolution—particularly as they related to the institution of slavery. Rather than dismiss him as a hypocrite, Gordon-Reed and Onuf set out to explain Jefferson. For… show more.

George Washington was given the opportunity to become King of America as it struggled mightily following the Revolution.

I am inspired by his selflessness after giving every ounce of his spiritual, emotional, and physical might to the cause. He turned it down in perhaps the single most powerful speech in America’s history. His power and influence over this young nation was set aside in an example that resonates still today.

I love how his story of courage against impossible odds and his steadfast confidence in the support of providence allowed the birth of something unique and wonderful. Thomas Jefferson attributed the “…moderation and virtue of a single individual…” to the survival of the cause of freedom in America. 

Steve Berry has built a successful writing career mining interesting nuggets from history and asking a simple what-if question that sends his imagination racing. The seventh Cotton Malone thriller opens with the failed attempt to assassinate President Danny Daniels. Berry links this attempt with the successful, but seemingly unrelated presidential assassinations in 1865, 1881, 1901, and 1963. The historical gold nugget at the heart of The Jefferson Key is a clause in the United States Constitution, contained in Article 1, Section 8. Malone races across the U.S. to break a cipher created by Thomas Jefferson, unravel a mystery concocted by Andrew Jackson, and unearth a document drafted by the Founding Fathers in order to stop the secret society of American pirates.

No understanding of the difficulties, and joys, of life in the buildup to revolution is complete without some understanding of that quintessential American, Benjamin Franklin.

More than any popular figure of the day Franklin represented the defiance, wit, and resourcefulness of the emerging American identity. There are many excellent biographies of the inventor-statesman but he had such a complex, long life that he is perhaps better fed to us in smaller doses, like this look at his life as ambassador-agent in London, where he lived for one-fifth of his life. 

We meet Franklin in his prime, as he engages in eloquent resistance to the British government, conducts experiments (some quite bizarre) on the cutting edge of science, completes many of his remarkable inventions (e.g. the armonica musical instrument and three-wheeled clock) and carries on his nontraditional lifestyle, including his daily “air bath” in which he sat at an open window,… show more.

I’m a fan of this book for several reasons. Like all of us, the founders of the United States were complicated people, and I love books that reveal the person inside.

As an author who writes about American history, I am constantly grateful for the immense resources of the Library of Congress, the institution that preserves our history. And thirdly, I’m a fan of author Barb Rosenstock—everything she writes is special!

This story shares Jefferson’s love of books and reading, his interest in absolutely every subject, and how his massive book collection helped build the Library of Congress. 

Winter, one of my favorite nonfiction authors, has written a witty, bracingly honest reference book about the smart, talented men who founded our nation (four became presidents). I like how the data about each one adds up to an interesting character sketch (a few details about James Madison: he weighed 100 pounds, enjoyed chess and horseback riding, and owned 108 human slaves, although he professed to be anti-slavery).

Young readers will come away with the understanding that our founders were not saints—they were imperfect human beings capable of greatness and weakness.