100 books like "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs"

Paine, Copley, and Priestley were all beneficiaries of formal institutional associations, mostly through the voluntary scientific and art associations, the American Philosophical Society in America and the Royal Society and Royal Academy in Britain. Martha Ballard, a midwife living during the early years of the American Republic in Maine (at the time a province of Massachusetts), had no formal associations but she did have deep and abiding affiliations. If not with elite academies, sanctioned by kings, and populated by periwigged gentlemen, then with family and community.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale remains the finest study ever written about the generative power of family and community in the early history of the American republic. Ballard’s meticulous diary, nearly 10,000 entries, afforded Ulrich access to the full, grueling realities of this remarkable woman’s life—through her own family’s trials, which included the births of her nine children, and the more than eight… show more.

Eighteenth-century innovators came in many forms. Some were artisans, the craftspeople who made utilitarian things. Some were what were sometimes called toy makers, not because they made toys, but because they made baubles and trinkets for adults. Some were natural philosophers, whose innovations came in the physical sciences. And some were artists—creators of high-priced, highly-prized, and beautiful things. In this latter category, John Singleton Copley was America’s most accomplished. Perhaps the finest portraitist ever to paint in America, on the eve of the War for Independence, the young Copley left for Britain, never to return to the country of his birth. Kamensky’s intimate and moving portrait shows Copley, the ex-pat and loyalist, ascending to the pinnacle of the British art world. But far more importantly, it shows the price Copley and his family paid for this ascent, reminding the reader that innovation does not happen in a political vacuum. 

Few figures better embody the intersection of innovation and revolutionary radicalism than the brilliant theologian, political theorist, and natural philosopher, Joseph Priestley, the subject of Johnson’s delightful and informative book. An ordained minister, Priestley abandoned the teachings of the Church of England for Unitarianism, a move that banished him to the theological sidelines. Priestley’s brilliance was not limited to the theological and, as he moved to the outer fringes of British religious life, he moved to the red-hot center of the nation’s scientific life, gaining election to the esteemed Royal Society. Among Priestley’s many contributions to the chemical sciences was to identify components parts of air, including the elemental oxygen. As he pursued far-reaching truths in the natural sciences, Priestley’s religious views remained controversial and by the time revolution erupted in France, they had elicited a reaction from British government officials, terrified by the contagion of revolution. Facing criminal prosecution… show more.

No single American better embodies the ideals of ingenuity and innovation than the great polymath Benjamin Franklin. Practically everything a man could do in the eighteenth century Franklin did—and he did them with an aptitude matched by few and exceeded by even fewer. Franklin made a fortune in the printing trade—rare enough in the publishing and printing capitals of Europe, but all but unheard of in the colonies. His scientific discoveries were unparalleled and earned him the accolades of the greatest scientific minds of the age.

He was also responsible for countless inventions—including the lightning rod, bifocals, a smokeless stove, and the glass armonica, an instrument for which both Mozart and Beethoven composed music. He was a master of the byzantine politics of European royal courts—this despite being of ordinary birth and coming of age in a place with none of the pomp and majesty of Europe’s great imperial capitals.… show more.

Mention “honor” in an 18th-century context, and most people think of dueling. Honor was about dueling, but it was also about much more. As Smith shows, a sense of honored suffused the 18th-century world. Different understandings of what honor meant helped propel the separation between Britain and its colonies. Smith takes the Founders' ideals seriously. Though they often fell short, knowing what they aimed for provides key insight into the mental universe they inhabited—and the legacy the left the new nation.

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.

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. 

“I am always yours” was not George Washington’s usual signoff. It was reserved for Elizabeth Willing Powel, a dear friend who often gets short shrift in Washington biographies. Cassandra Good’s book isn’t devoted to the General, but what's there can't be found anywhere else.

Gordon Wood is often described as the dean of historians of the American founding, and all of his books are eminently worth reading. I was lucky enough, as a postdoc at Brown University, to sit in on the last course that he taught on the American Revolution before his retirement. Of the many volumes that Wood has written, I picked this dual biography of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson not only because it’s a delightful read, but also because it’s the book that I was reading when the idea for my book struck me.

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.