Five Great Books on the American Revolution

There’s never been a better time to do some reading on the American Founding. You can check out my books on the Founding and Founders such as Jefferson, Franklin, and Patrick Henry, but here are five excellent books that would be a great start on learning about the Revolution and American independence.

1) Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991). This is arguably the finest book on the Revolution and its consequences, and more readable than his equally brilliant Creation of the American Republic.

2) David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (1994). Fischer’s evocative story places Revere in his proper colonial context. After reading this, you’ll understand why it was impossible that Revere would have ever said “The British are coming!”

3) Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (1997). A definitive history of the Declaration, its creation, and the way that Americans came to revere it as a quasi-sacred document.

4) James Byrd, Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution (2013). Byrd has dramatically transformed our understanding of how the Bible was actually used in the Revolution. He counted the number of times particular passages were cited in Revolutionary-era publications. So, for instance, did the Patriots deal with Romans 13 and its strictures against rebellion? It turns out that this passage was the most commonly cited one during the Revolution. I regularly assign this book in courses.

5) Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (2011). One of the best books on the Loyalists in the Revolution, Jasanoff’s fascinating account shows why so many Americans – including many evangelical Christians – found themselves defending the British Empire and what she calls the “Spirit of ’83.”

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