Fans pick 100 books like Redcoat

It seems that there is no detail of life in the late 1700s and early 1800s that Winston Graham doesn’t know. From aspects of history, geography, social class culture, medicine, ship-building, mining… Graham is ‘The Man’. But he is also a composite storyteller, weaving a compelling, generations-spanning narrative that charts the turmoils and triumphs of Ross Poldark and his family. One detail that I love is the representation of genuine female experience in a mode that is not about feminist agendas; Graham writes his women with compassion and complexity, making them far more than the housewives and bodice-rippers characteristic of some historical fiction. Quintessentially English, but never rose-tinted, these novels are a treasure that deserve greater acknowledgment.

It is a gripping story set in the winter of 1777, when the American Army, under General George Washington, had camped in the cold plateau of Valley Forge. No supplies and stuck 'out there,' the Army had to battle the freezing temperatures and themselves to survive. Told plainly in the first person narrative, it flows well with prose and bits of poetry. A likable book, set in a sinister time.

This story concerns a family from the Revolutionary period, going to a re-enactment ball of the Mischianza. This was originally a party given by the British troops in Philadelphia for General Howe. It turns out this family, the Nelsons, are navigating through the modern day, as though they really were from the 18th century (and are playfully shocked at the modern conveniences), but are themselves re-enactors. The narrative has the quirk of being written in the style of the period. Good book, because it is like Back to the Future, with the Future already in situ.

This novel reads as a diary of Dolley Madison from 1813-14, signing her entries as 'D.P.M.'. It concerns the War of 1812, and describes Mrs. Madison's wartime experiences. She comes across as a strong woman and if she had the chance, could have led American troops to victory. She stays on the sidelines though, and makes intelligent observations, as imagined by the author. A bibliography is provided at the end, showing dedicative research, and for anyone who wishes to look further into the War of 1812 and its respective era.

General William Howe was among the most important figures in the American Revolution, commanding British forces during the critical early years of the war.

Biographers have been challenged in understanding this man, largely because of a dearth of his own personal writings. Here, an author has taken the innovative approach of studying the writings of his sister, which reveal her own influential role in the conflict as well as shedding new light on the general, and on his brother Admiral Richard Howe.

The book is a stunning example of new research that brings an entirely new perspective to a family that played an outsized part in shaping the events of the era.

Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. That’s the legend, which did not appear until her grandchildren started to capitalize on tourism to the Philadelphia Centennial celebrations in 1876. The real Betsy Ross proves far more exciting. She sewed flags, but she was also an artisan, a businesswoman, a Quaker who was too political for her Meeting, and involved in the public protests leading up to the Revolution. Miller connects family networks, the material culture of the drapery and textile industries, British trade policies, and Revolutionary politics and protest into a whole cloth. This is a visceral look at the War for Independence from one of its epicenters and the vantage of one of its most iconic women.

This is one of the first books on prisons I ever read and it’s the one that got me hooked. It’s not just about prisons, though. Laboratories of Virtue is about the period during and after the American Revolution when the US moved away from colonial-era punishments into the beginnings of what we have today. It was a moment when we could have gone in a lot of different directions, but Meranze shows how we ended up with long-term incarceration as our go-to punishment for serious (and some not-so-serious) crimes.

He brings in developments in society generally, explaining how anxieties about theatre and crowds contributed to middle-class and elite reformers’ growing distaste for capital punishment and a preference for privately meting out punishment. This book is a great introduction to how punishment and penal trends are the products of changes in society and perceptions of crime, rather than a direct… show more.

I love to find “hidden gems” in history. Ona Judge is a gem. First published in 2017, Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge is a biography that reads like an engaging novel. It depicts the life of George and Martha Washington’s young enslaved girl that grows to a young woman in the shadows of the most powerful couple in our new nation. At age 16, Ona leaves Mount Vernon to accompany President Washington and Martha while they live in New York and then Philadelphia. She is treated splendidly, but she is still property. This terrible truth crashes upon Ona when Martha, wanting to give the absolute best gift she can to her difficult, disagreeable, and stubborn granddaughter, decides to give her Ona – her most cherished possession, as a wedding gift. Rather than be property to be gifted and given, Ona escapes. This book shows how President… show more.

I knew nothing about this fella going in! von Steuben accomplished so much–but how much of that was via lies, deceit, and disregard for those who didn't fit with his personal plan for success? He was a trailblazer for gay leaders but problematic just the same. This well-researched, well-paced tale moves along well, with fantastic illustrations and welcome input from the authors on how von Steuben's story affects and compares to their own lives as gay men.

I first read Minutemen and Their World in graduate school, and it shaped how I see the Revolution and history more generally—history is made by the decisions of ordinary people.

First published in 1976 and recently reissued, it focuses on the battles of Lexington and Concord, where the first shots of the Revolution were fired. Like Zabin’s Boston Massacre, it starts before the well-known events. The people of Concord were ordinary men and women with no intention to revolt against their empire. They were busy arguing about local matters such as whether to fire their preacher.

What I love about this book is how we see them gradually become revolutionaries, really against their will, humanizing the Revolution and helping us understand that it was not inevitable.