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In this book, Novak probes the innermost convictions of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and the others who helped the American eagle take wing. He shows how they were able to find common ground by appealing to the God of the Hebrews. He traces what happened to this Hebrew metaphysics as the world of the founders became the world of modernity.

In 1755, Major General Edward Braddock was sent by Great Britain on a mission to drive France once and for all from the New World. Accompanied by the largest armed expeditionary force ever sent to North America, Braddock'sprimary target was the Forks of the Ohio, where he planned to seize Fort Duquesne and then march north to the Canadian border. After landing in Alexandria, Virginia, Braddock organized his troops and supply chain, threatenedto billet soldiers in private homes, and called the fi...

Published in 1995, this volume examines the Bray Associates, a philanthropic society founded by the missionary Thomas Bray. The Bray Associates was the parent organization of the Georgia Trustees, the founding and original governing body of the Georgia Colony. James Edward Oglethorpe led the Bray Associates from 1730 to 1732, a period of revitalization for the group. It was through the Associates that Oglethorpe's colonial ambitions gained the legitimacy needed to win Parliament's support. Rodne...

The British victory on the Plains of Abraham in September 1759 and the subsequent Conquest of Canada were undoubtedly significant geopolitical events, but their nature and implications continue to be debated. Revisiting 1759 provides a fresh historical reappraisal of the Conquest and its aftermath using new approaches drawn from military, imperial, social, and Aboriginal history. This cohesive collection investigates many of the most hotly contested questions surrounding the Conquest: Was the...

Two hundred twenty years after the second Continental Congress approved the American Declaration of Independence, its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, is more and more frequently labeled "radical." His words are even used to validate the agendas of today's right-wing militias. But his unorthodox religious views, which permeate the Declaration, are most deserving of the appellation. Allen Jayne analyzes the ideology of the Declaration - and its implications - by going back to the sources of Je...

Adventure, danger, romance-Mifflin W. Gibbs seemed to invite them in his determination to better himself. He staked out considerable success as an entrepreneur and public voice in the American West before moving on to other frontiers. In California, where he had gone to seek his fortune, he was politically active, protesting the poll tax, editing a newspaper, and generally speaking out. After exile in Canada, necessitated by his civil-rights agitation and the political climate, Gibbs returned to...

Absolutely authoritative and immediate, this is the story of the most powerful of American Indian tribes, the Comanches (they called themselves the "true human beings"), who rode into modern history in a headlong collision with western civilization. T. R. Fehrenbach here recreates their rise to power, from their first harsh struggles for survival in the Eastern Rockies through uncounted generations who desperately resisted privation and suffering until they encountered and mastered the horse (fi...

Witchcraft in Early North America investigates European, African, and Indian witchcraft beliefs and their expression in colonial America. Alison Games's engaging book takes us beyond the infamous outbreak at Salem, Massachusetts, to look at how witchcraft was a central feature of colonial societies in North America. Her substantial and lively introduction orients readers to the subject and to the rich selection of documents that follows. The documents-some of which have never been published prev...

Praised by her mentor John Adams, Mercy Otis Warren was America's first woman playwright and female historian of the American Revolution. In this unprecedented biography, Nancy Rubin Stuart reveals how Warren's provocative writing made her an exception among the largely voiceless women of the eighteenth century.

American statesman John Adams (1735-1826) was a key player in the early days of the American Revolution, and the second President of the United States (1797-1801). He was involved in drafting the 1776 Declaration of Independence, and as a Congress representative in Europe negotiated peace with Great Britain. First published in 1841, this two-volume book brings together the letters Adams wrote to his wife Abigail between 1774 and 1801. Spanning twenty-five years crucial to the creation and develo...

This is the first volume of a four-volume set that will reprint in their entirety the texts of 72 pamphlets relating to the Anglo-American controversy that were published in America in the years 1750-1776. They have been selected from the corpus of the pamphlet literature on the basis of their importance in the growth of American political and social ideas, their role in the debate with England over constitutional rights, and their literary merit. All of the best known pamphlets of the period, s...