Declaring independence : why 1776 matters / Edward J. Larson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Larson, Edward J. (Edward John), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Politics and government--1775-1783.

United States.

United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783.

Seventeen seventy-six, A.D.

Genre:

Informational works.

Physical Description:

xv, 221 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : W.W. Norton and Company, [2026]

Summary:

On the 250th anniversary of American independence, with the history of our founding a political battleground, this study of the ideas and battlefield sacrifices of 1776 by a Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar could not be more timely.

At the beginning of 1776, virtually no one in the colonies was advocating independence: Americans based their grievances against Parliament on their rights as British subjects. By the end of 1776, independence was on every patriot's lips. The many tyrannies of a king had made an independent republic necessary. In Declaring Independence, Edward J. Larson gives us a compact, insightful history of that pivotal year. He traces a narrative arc that runs from the inspiring appeals of Paine's Common Sense in January; through the soaring ideals of midsummer, when the Continental Congress grounded independence in the self-evident truths of human equality and individual rights, and the states wove revolutionary principles of republican government and the rule of law into their new constitutions; to Paine's urgent pleas of December, when "the times that try men's souls" required Americans not "to shrink from the service of their country." Dramatic military clashes also punctuate the year: the British evacuation of Boston forced by the brilliant maneuvers of Washington's Army; the Battle of Long Island, a costly defeat that opened New York to British occupation; and the desperate year-end victory of a threadbare American army at Trenton. Combined, these ideals and the sacrifices remind us why, on this anniversary and at this political moment, 1776 matters to all of us.

Contents:

The meaning of 1776

New Year's Day 1776

Launching a year of Common Sense

Early spring

Planting season for independence

Midsummer's dream of independence

A late summer war of posts

Autumn initiatives

Winter crossings

Looking back on 1776

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-211) and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9781324078975

1324078979

OCLC:

1490363157

Publisher Number:

CIPO000289313