BOOK REVIEW: The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding by Joseph J. Ellis (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2025) $31.00 hardcover. The latest book by Founding Brothers author Joseph J. Ellis brings the reader back to the meaning of what he has referred to as “The Cause,” that is, the ideals […]
BOOK REVIEW: Siege: The Canadian Campaign in the American Revolution, 1775-1776 by Donald Grady Shomette (Heritage Books, 2025) Two volumes, paperback, $77.00 In its first year, the American Revolution was unstoppable. The outbreak of war at Lexington and Concord was followed by the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and victories at Moore’s Creek Bridge (North Carolina), […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Scott Syfert on what we can reliably know about North Carolina’s Mecklenburg Declaration even though the original document has been lost. Was this the first Declaration of Independence and did any of its language end up in the Declaration of Independence written and signed in […]
BOOK REVIEW: Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England by Gloria McCahon Whiting. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) $39.95 hardcover. Massachusetts had no large plantations due to its harsh winters and rocky soil, and without the ability for cash crops to be grown successfully, the demand for enslaved […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence by Lauren Duval (Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press) $45.00 hardcover The Home Front by Lauren Duval, published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in conjunction with the University of North Carolina Press, offers a comprehensive […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer discusses his recent article on how Pope Pius VI viewed republicanism and the American Revolution and the ultimate acceptance of the new United States of America. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Killing of Jane McCrea: An American Tragedy of the Revolutionary Frontier by Paul Staiti (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2025). My introduction to the Jane McCrea story came fifty years ago as part of a Revolutionary War reenactment weekend. The organizers chose my group to be part of the opening of the battle […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Course of Human Events: The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States by Steven Sarson. (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia) $35.00 paperback Modern interpretation of the Declaration of Independence is distressingly polarized. To some, it was the contrivance of hypocrites engaged in a war to perpetuate slavery.[1] […]
BOOK REVIEW: Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History by Andrew Burstein (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026) In Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, Andrew Burstein tackles the inner life of Thomas Jefferson and seeks to provide a fuller picture of the man in both public and private. Although Jefferson spent much of his life in public service, […]
BOOK REVIEW: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2025) $35.00 hardcover University of Maryland professor Richard Bell’s latest work, The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, shows how the North American struggle for independence from British control was a global conflict, changing […]
BOOK REVIEW: Lydia’s Tale: The Mystery of Lydia Darragh, Irish Quaker, Patriot Spy by Robert N. Fanelli (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2025) $34.95 hardcover Robert N. Fanelli’s Lydia’s Tale attempts to contextualize the life and legacy of the famed heroine spy Lydia Darragh. Fanelli is a contributor to the Journal of the American Revolution; his […]
BOOK REVIEW: A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison, and the Forging of a Friendship by Louis P. Masur (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2025) $24.95 hardcover Have you ever wanted to road trip through rural America with future presidents Thomas Jefferson or James Madison? Louis P. Masur’s A Journey North is probably as close to […]
BOOK REVIEW: New Jersey’s Revolutionary Rivalry: The Untold Story of Colonel Tye & Captain Huddy by Rick Geffken (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2025) $24.99 Paperback Rick Geffken’s New Jersey’s Revolutionary Rivalry revolves around two antagonists. Titus was an enslaved man who escaped to British lines and, as the leader of a mixed group of […]
BOOK REVIEW: Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution by Ronald Angelo Johnson (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 2025) The years between the two well-known peace treaties that ended conflicts in North America were a time of significant social upheaval. Two places in particular, the thirteen British colonies and the Caribbean […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Geoffrey Hoerauf, JAR contributor and reenactor, on the role of American spies and sympathizers around British Fort Detroit and how they informed the American efforts along the frontier. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google […]
BOOK REVIEW: Facing Washington’s Crossing: The Hessians and the Battle of Trenton by Steven Bier (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2025) $35.00 Steven Bier’s Facing Washington’s Crossing: The Hessians and the Battle of Trenton recounts the tale of the Hessian regiments during the American Revolution as they leave their home of Hessen-Kassel, crossing the Atlantic to […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Stuart Lillie, vice president of Public History at Fort Ticonderoga, on their new exhibit on Henry Knox’s Artillery Train. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Each episode […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR Contributor Brett Bannor on the surprising influence of Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” on members of the Founding Generation. How often did they refer back to this classic political satire? New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, […]
BOOK REVIEW: George Washington: His Quest for Honor and Fame by Peter R. Henriques (Charlottesville, VA: University of VA Press, 2025) $24.95 hardcover Famed Washington scholar Peter R. Henriques (author of Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington) turned the content of some recent talks given at Colonial Williamsburg into a brief “interpretive biography” of […]
This week Brady Crytzer’s guest is Alexander S. Burns, assistant professor of History at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Prof. Burns discussed his new book Infantry In Battle: 1733-1783, at the 2025 Braddock’s Road Preservation Association Seminar at Fort Ligonier in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States […]
BOOK REVIEW: The First Fleets: Colonial Navies of the British Atlantic World, 1630-1775 by Benjamin C. Schaffer (University of Alabama Press, 2025) $34.95, paperback The United States Navy honors October 13, 1775 as its birthday in keeping with a resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress to acquire two vessels “for a cruize eastward, for […]
BOOK REVIEW: Colonial Massachusetts Laws and Liberties and the English Commonwealth: State Formation, the Rule of Law, and the People’s Welfare by Charles Edward Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2024). Hardcover $177 In the 1840s, an interviewer asked Capt. Levi Preston why he had fought in the American Revolution. Was it the oppression of the Stamp Act? […]
BOOK REVIEW: Colonel William Prescott: Heroic Commander of the Battle of Bunker Hill by Donald R. Ryan. (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2025) $34.95 hardcover. Donald R. Ryan’s Colonel William Prescott: Heroic Commander of the Battle of Bunker Hill recounts the life a Massachusetts native who led his men in a courageous effort against a formidable British […]
BOOK REVIEW: Before Manifest Destiny: The Contested Expansion of the Early United States by Nicholas DiPucchio (University of Virginia Press, 2025) $35.00 paperback It is rather easy to take for granted the continental scale of the modern United States as a near inevitability, imagining a steady march of intrepid American pioneers into a foreboding wilderness […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR Contributor G. Patrick O’Brien on how the news of the end of the American Revolution was conveyed along the New York frontier in 1783. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, […]
BOOK REVIEW: Enemies to Their Country: The Marblehead Addressers and Consensus in the American Revolution by Nicholas W. Gentile. (Amherst and Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2025) Paperback, $32.95. The first book by independent historian Nicholas W. Gentile brings to light an almost completely unknown incident that occurred in the coastal town of Marblehead, […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR Contributor Patrick H. Hannum about a little known, but important river crossing during the 1775 campaign in Virginia that eventually led to Royal Governor Lord Dunmore’s departure from the state. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR Contributor Richard Gardiner. For the last two centuries historians have speculated as to the identity of George Washington’s first teacher. Richard Gardiner provides compelling new evidence. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, […]
BOOK REVIEW: Fighting for Philadelphia: Forts Mercer and Mifflin, the Battle of Whitemarsh, and the Road to Valley Forge, October 5-December 19, 1777 by Michael C. Harris (El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2025) When examining the 1777 Philadelphia campaign, historians often skip from the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown, in September and early October, […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR Contributor Josh Wheeler on Loyalist David Fanning’s raid against Patriots in North Carolina after the British surrender at Yorktown. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Each […]
BOOK REVIEW: Winning the Ten Crucial Days: The Keys to Victory in George Washington’s Legendary Winter Campaign by David Price (Brookline Books, 2025) David Price’s Winning the Ten Crucial Days examines Gen. George Washington’s military campaign from December 25, 1776 to January 3, 1777. This short period was one of the most pivotal moments in […]
Philadelphia, The Revolutionary City exhibit at the American Philosophical Society (founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743) positions the historic city as the most consistently politically engaged throughout the war. While New York was occupied by the British for a large portion of the war and Boston saw action at the onset and beginning of the […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR Contributor David Price on the life of Lemuel Haynes, clergyman and an abolitionist voice in the Revolutionary Era. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. […]
This July Fourth, JAR contributors will once again provide more than two hours of Revolutionary talk on Radio Nemo, the station dedicated to the trucking industry, hosted by legendary host Dave Nemo. This year’s lineup features Shawn McGhee, Nancy Spannaus, Gary Ecelbarger, Jane Hampton Cook, with the interviews beginning at 9:30 a.m. eastern on July […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR Contributor Eric Sterner about frontiersman Samuel Brady and his rescue of Jane Stoops from an Indigenous war party. While the event may be true, did it happen the way the later stories recalled? New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR Contributor David P. Ervin on the 13th Virginia Regiment’s controversial redeployment from the western frontier to the east to join the main Continental army. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, […]
BOOK REVIEW: Under Alien Skies: Environment, Suffering, and the Defeat of the British Military in Revolutionary America by Vaughn Scribner (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2024) $29.95 Paperback Historians’ interest in the environment has remade our understanding of the past in recent years. We are now more inclined to appreciate the role that […]
BOOK REVIEW: Virginia in the American Revolution by Charles A. Mills (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2025) $24.95 paperback Why were Revolutionary War events in Virginia significant, and what was it like to reside in the rebelling colony? Charles A. Mills, a historian and prolific author, answers these questions in his new book on Virginia’s […]
BOOK REVIEW: John Hancock: First to Sign, First to Invest in America’s Independence by Willard Sterne Randall (Dutton, 2025). Trends of historical research over the past few decades have steadily moved away from the “Great Man” study of the past that produced a slew of works on singular characters of important periods in favor of […]
