Whether acting as a military officer or civilian officeholder, George Washington did not possess a reputation for glad handing, easy confidences, or even much warmth. His greatest attributes as a comm
The enormous popularity of his pamphlet Common Sense made Thomas Paine one of the best-known patriots during the early years of American independence. His subsequent service with the Continental Army,
Examining the wave of radical writings emanating from revolutionary Europe in the 1790s, Cotlar, a professor of history at Willamette University, presents this discussion of key radical democratic pri
Shalev (history, Haifa U.) contends that the political choices and claims made by American revolutionaries in the 18th century can only be understood by recognizing that they found the ancient Mediter
In Era of Experimentation, Daniel Peart challenges the pervasive assumption that the present-day political system, organized around two competing parties, represents the logical fulfillment of partici
Collegiate Republic offers a compellingly different view of the first generation of college communities founded after the American Revolution. Such histories have usually taken the form of the institu
In this acclaimed work, available here for the first time in paperback, Herbert E. Sloan examines Thomas Jefferson's complex and obsessive relationship to debt—its roles in his life and political care
Tom Paine’s America explores the vibrant, transatlantic traffic in people, ideas, and texts that profoundly shaped American political debate in the 1790s. In 1789, when the Federal Constitution was ra
This collection of eight essays and an afterword contains revised and expanded essays first delivered at a conference at US Military Academy, West Point. They explore Thomas Jefferson's vision and eff
It is probably difficult today to understand the complexities of the world Thomas Jefferson inhabited, a world heading into the future but not far removed from ancient ways of perceiving and explainin
Why did Thomas Jefferson, who claimed to abhor war and fear standing armies, in 1802 establish the United States Military Academy? For more than two centuries this question has received scant attentio
Thousands of British American mainland colonists rejected the War for American Independence. Shunning rebel violence as unnecessary, unlawful, and unnatural, they emphasized the natural ties of blood,
Author Armin Mattes presents students, academics, researchers, and general interest readers with an examination of the emergence of new concepts of both democracy and the state in Europe and the Weste
"This book examines the appearance of miracles and the supernatural in Jeffersonian America, and explains the way in which these religious claims to supernatural powers represented a political crisis
Historian McBride takes a new look at religion and politics in Revolutionary America, focusing on pivotal national events and developments between 1775 and 1800, in which religious language and sy
Most Americans believe that the ratification of the Constitution in 1788 marked the settlement of post-Revolutionary disputes over the meanings of rights, democracy, and sovereignty in the new nation.
Thomas Jefferson read Latin and Greek authors throughout his life and wrote movingly about his love of the ancient texts, which he thought should be at the core of America's curriculum. Yet at the sam
The Limits of Optimism works to dispel persistent notions about Jefferson’s allegedly paradoxical and sphinx-like quality. Maurizio Valsania shows that Jefferson’s multifaceted character and personali
