Penn Valley Common Read: Hamilton: The Revolution

In this lively account, Robert Allison provides a cohesive synthesis of the military, diplomatic, political, social, and intellectual aspects of the Revolution, paying special attention to its causes and consequences. The book recreates the tumultuous events of the 1760s and 1770s that led to revolution, such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, as well as the role the Sons of Liberty played in turning resistance into full-scale revolt. Allison explains how and why Americans changed their ideas of government and society so profoundly in these years and how the War for Independence was fought and won.

This book is about leadership. It tells the dramatic story of seven defining leadership moments from the American Revolution. On these pages you learn about real people facing historic challenges and overcoming what reasonable observers believed were insurmountable odds. More reasonable people might have surrendered or given up. Many reasonable people did. These leaders, thankfully, were unreasonable for the cause of Liberty. The leadership skills told in these stories are timeless and telling.

The contributors to this volume examine whether or not all modern revolutions follow a pattern or script. Traditionally, historians have studied revolutions as distinct and separate events. Drawing on close familiarity with many different cultures, languages, and historical transitions, this anthology presents the first cohesive historical approach to the comparative study of revolutions. As scholars seek to make sense of the latest flurry of revolutionary activity, they are hampered by the fact that there is currently no theory with any broad support of how and why revolutions occur or follow recognizable paths. This volume of essays proposes a new approach to the comparative study of revolutions. Its guiding insight is that revolutions are scripted; they create, inherit, enact, and extend recognizable "scripts" that offer frameworks for political action.

A world dominated by America and driven by cheap oil, easy credit, and conspicuous consumption is unraveling before our eyes. In this powerful, deeply humanistic book, Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary figure in the struggle for justice in America, shrewdly assesses the current crisis—political, economical, and environmental—and shows how to create the radical social change we need to confront new realities. A vibrant, inspirational force, Boggs has participated in all of the twentieth century's major social movements—for civil rights, women's rights, workers'rights, and more. She draws from seven decades of activist experience, and a rigorous commitment to critical thinking, to redefine 'revolution' for our times.

The inspiration for the hit Broadway musical. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation. In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, Chernow recounts Hamilton's turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington's aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States.

Liberty! brings to life one of the most important and compelling stories in America's history: the struggle for independence and the birth of the nation. New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming's gripping narrative captures the high drama of the revolutionary years and the unyielding courage and political genius of the men and women who imagined a new set of political possibilities for humankind - laying the foundation for the identity and character of the American people in the process.

Alexander Hamilton often wrote about his own life, and his writings are available in this book.

An authoritative analysis of the Constitution and an enduring classic of political philosophy. The Federalist Papers explain the complexities of a constitutional government--its political structure and principles based on the inherent rights of man. Scholars have long regarded this work as a milestone in political science and a classic of American political theory. Based on the original McLean edition of 1788.

Written when political and military history dominated the discipline, J. Franklin Jameson's The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement was a pioneering work. Based on a series of four lectures he gave at Princeton University in 1925, the short book argued that the most salient feature of the American Revolution had not been the war for independence from Great Britain; it was, rather, the struggle between aristocratic values and those of the common people who tended toward a leveling democracy.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's groundbreaking musical Hamilton is as revolutionary as its subject, the poor kid from the Caribbean who fought the British, defended the Constitution, and helped to found the United States. Fusing hip-hop, pop, R&B, and the best traditions of theater, this once-in-a-generation show broadens the sound of Broadway, reveals the storytelling power of rap, and claims our country's origins for a diverse new generation. In addition, Miranda has written more than 200 funny, revealing footnotes for his award-winning libretto, the full text of which is published here.

The founding fathers were rebels against the British Parliament, Eric Nelson argues, not the Crown. As a result of their labors, the 1787 Constitution assigned its new president far more power than any British monarch had wielded for 100 years. On one side of the Atlantic were kings without monarchy; on the other, monarchy without kings.

Americans know about the Boston Tea Party and "the shot heard around the world," but sixteen months divided these two iconic events, a period that has nearly been lost to history. The Spirit of 74 fills in this gap in our nation's founding narrative, showing how in these mislaid months, step by step, real people made a revolution. After the Tea Party, Parliament not only shut down a port but also revoked the sacred Massachusetts charter. Completely disenfranchised, citizens rose up as a body and cast off British rule everywhere except in Boston, where British forces were stationed. A "Spirit of 74" initiated the American Revolution, much as the better-known "Spirit of 76" sparked independence.

By establishing systemic linkages between the histories of the free and the unfree, and between the factual and the symbolic, this framework points to a fundamental reassessment of the ways we think about the American Founding. Rozbicki moves beyond the two dominant interpretations of Revolutionary liberty—one assuming the Founders invested it with a modern meaning that has in essence continued to the present day, the other highlighting its apparent betrayal by their commitment to inequality.

Dan Sisson provides the definitive window into key concepts that have formed the backdrop of our democracy: the nature of revolution, stewardship of power, liberty, and the ever-present danger of factions and tyranny. Most contemporary historians celebrate Jefferson's victory over Adams in 1800 as the beginning of the two-party system, but Sisson believes this reasoning is entirely the wrong lesson. Jefferson saw his election as a peaceful revolution by the American people overturning an elitist faction that was stamping out cherished constitutional rights.

The meaning of the American Revolution has always been a much contested question, and asking it is particularly important today: the standard, easily digested narrative puts the Founding Fathers at the head of a unified movement, failing to acknowledge the deep divisions in Revolutionary-era society and the many different historical interpretations that have followed. Whose American Revolution Was It? speaks both to the ways diverse groups of Americans who lived through the Revolution might have answered that question and to the different ways historians through the decades have interpreted the Revolution.