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Translated for the First Time in English with Annotations by a Leading Expert, the Romanov Family s Final Years Through the Writings of the Second Oldest Daughter Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia was the second of the four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Long recognized by historians as the undisputed beauty of the family, Tatiana was acknowledged for her poise, her elegance, and her innate dignity within her own family. Helen Azar, translator of the diaries of Olga Romanov, and Nicholas B. A. Nicholson, Russian Imperial historian, have joined together to present a truly comprehensive picture of this extraordinarily gifted, complex, and intelligent woman in her own words. Tatiana Romanov, Daughter of the Last Tsar: Diaries and Letters, 1913 1918," presents translations of material never before published in Russian or in English, as well as materials never published in their entirety in the West.The brisk, modern prose of Tatiana s diary entries reveals the character of a young woman who was far more than the sheltered imperial beauty as she previously has been portrayed.While many historians and writers describe her as a cold, haughty, and distant aristocrat, this book shows instead a remarkably down-to-earth and humorous young woman, full of life and compassion. A detail-oriented and observant participant in some of the most important historical events of the early twentieth century, she left firsthand descriptions of the tercentenary celebrations of the House of Romanov, the early years of Russia s involvement in World War I, and the road to her family s final days in Siberian exile. Her writings reveal extraordinary details previously unknown or unacknowledged. Lavishly annotated for the benefit of the nonspecialist reader, this book is not only a reevaluation of Tatiana s role as more than just one of four sisters, but also a valuable reference on Russia, the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the people closest to the Grand Duchess and her family."

In August 1914, Russia entered the First World War, and with it, the Imperial family of Tsar Nicholas II was thrust into a conflict from which they would not emerge. His eldest child, Olga Nikolaevna, great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, had begun a diary in 1905 when she was 10 years old and kept writing her thoughts and impressions of day-to-day life as a Grand Duchess until abruptly ending her entries when her father abdicated his throne in March 1917. Held at the State Archives of the Russian Federation in Moscow, Olga's diaries during the wartime period have never been translated into English until this volume. At the outset of the war, Olga and her sister, Tatiana, worked as nurses in a military hospital along with their mother, Tsarina Alexandra. Olga's younger sisters, Maria and Anastasia, visited their own infirmaries to help raise the morale of the wounded and sick soldiers. The strain was indeed great as Olga records her impressions of tending to the officers who had been injured and maimed in the fighting on the Russian front. Concerns about her sickly brother, Aleksei abound, as well those for her father who is seen attempting to manage the ongoing war.Gregori Rasputin appears in entries, too, in an affectionate manner as one would expect of a family friend.While the diaries reflect the interests of a young woman, her tone increases in seriousness as the Russian army suffers setbacks, Rasputin is ultimately murdered, and a popular movement against her family begins to grow. At the point Olga ends her writing in 1917, the author continues the story by translating letters and impressions from family intimates, such as Anna Vyrubova, as well as the diary kept by Nicholas II himself. Finally, once the Imperial family has been put under house arrest by the revolutionaries, observations by Alexander Kerensky, head of the initial Provisional Government, are provided, these too in English translation for the first time. Olga would offer no further personal writings as she and the rest of her family were crowded into the basement of a house in the Urals and shot to death in July 1918.The Diary of Olga Romanov: Royal Witness to the Russian Revolution, translated and introduced by scientist and librarian Helen Azar, and supplemented with additional primary source material, is a remarkable document of a young woman who did not choose to be part of a royal family and never exploited her own position, but lost her life simply because of what her family represented.

A comprehensive military history of one of the most important empires of Late AntiquityThe Sasanian Empire at War: Persia, Rome, and the Rise of Islam, 224–651 is the first comprehensive study in English examining war and society in one of the most important empires in world history: the Persian Empire of 224-651 AD, ruled by the Sasanian clan. At its height the Sasanians governed lands from the Indus River in the east to Egypt and the Mediterranean in the west. Adversaries of Rome, they also faced grave challenges from nomadic powers from Central Asia, notably the Huns and Turks. The Sasanians were able to maintain their empire for hundreds of years through nearly constant warfare, but when their expansion was checked in the north by the Byzantines at Constantinople in 626, and with the Muslim invasions to their south and west beginning in the 630s, the empire could no longer be sustained, and it finally collapsed.In this book, Michael J. Decker examines Sasanian warfare, including military capabilities, major confrontations, organization and weapons of the Persian army. In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of the conflicts that marked this vital period in the history of Eurasia, The Sasanian Empire at War challenges long cherished notions of the inferiority of Sasanian military capabilities and renders a new image of a sophisticated, confident culture astride the heart of Eurasia at the end of the ancient world and birth of the Silk Road. Persian arms were among the many features of their culture that drew widespread admiration and was one of the keys to the survival of Iranian culture beyond the Arab Conquest and into the present day.

Robert Rogers, commander of Rogers’ Rangers during the French and Indian War, was the war’s best-known colonial military hero and, in the ensuing peace, one of the best-known Americans of any description, rivaling Benjamin Franklin in popularity. He was revered in the colonies as an example of the self-made man based on merit, in contrast to the hide-bound, hierarchical British military establishment. Yet this American icon ultimately alienated his peers,fought as a loyalist in the Revolutionary War, ruined himself financially, and died in obscurity in London, estranged from the country of his birth. Rogers is known today for his role in developing the mystique of the modern Ranger, but what explains his meteoric rise and his long, depressing fall?Robert Rogers, Ranger: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon by Martin Klotz is a fresh look at the life of this famous, yet highly flawed man. Rogers undeniably had great personal strengths. He was brave nearly to the point of fearlessness. He was physically robust, always the one to cover the retreat, carry the wounded, or go for help when no one else could carry on. He was an intrepid explorer who wrote with eloquence about the splendors of the American frontier. He was bold and unconventional, good at thinking outside the box. He was an outstanding scout and intelligence gatherer who provided invaluable service to a British army inexperienced in woodland warfare. At the same time Rogers had enormous weaknesses that undermined his ability to lead effectively. His boldness was never tempered by judgment, and he was prone to grandiose schemes that came to nothing or, worse, to disaster. His constant self-promotion—including embellishing and lying about his battlefield successes—contributed to his popularity but damaged his reputation with peers and superiors. He succumbed to alcoholism and gambling, was profligate, especially with money—his debts were enormous—and routinely skirted the edges of the law. Rogers never found a comfortable place in America. Instead, his aristocratic patrons in London, who knew him mostly from his own self-description, gave him his most valuable opportunities, including commanding an important military and trading center on the colonial frontier and establishing the Queen’s Rangers to fight alongside Crown forces during the Revolution. But when the British cause failed in America, Rogers became an anathema on both sides of the Atlantic. A fascinating inquiry into an eighteenth-century life, Robert Rogers, Ranger presents this American legend as he lived, crossing the line between fame and misfortune.

Historian Hugh D. H. Soar is joined by Mark Stretton, master blacksmith, and Joseph Gibbs, bowyer, in order to demonstrate how a war bow and its associated arrow heads and shafts may have been constructed and used. In addition to showing the complete manufacture of a bow from tree selection to stringing and how specialized arrowheads were forged and attached to shafts, Secrets of the English War Bow provides information on the actual performance of the war bow, including the bow's effectiveness against various materials and, for the first time, its useagainst moving targets, since bows were often drawn against mounted soldiers. Armed with this new information, Soar provides an analysis of both successes and failures of the war bow in several important battles. Illustrated in color and black and white, Secrets of the English War Bow provides an invaluable service for those interested in medieval military history, archery, and technology.--De re Militari

A period of stability in the early sixth century AD gave the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian an opportunity to recapture parts of the Western Empire which had been lost to invading barbarians in the preceding centuries. The climactic conflict over Italy between 535 and 554--the Gothic War-- decided the political future of Europe, holding in its balance the possibility that the Roman Empire might rise again. While large portions of the original territory of the ancient Roman Empire were recaptured, the Eastern Empire was incapable of retaining much of its hard-won advances, and soon the empire once again retracted. As a result of the Gothic War, Italy was invaded by the Lombards who began their important kingdom, the Franks began transforming Gaul into France, and without any major force remaining in North Africa, that territory was quickly overrun by the first wave of Muslim expansion in the ensuing century. Written as a general overview of this critical period, The Gothic War: Justinian's Campaign to Reclaim Italy opens with a history of the conflict with Persia and the great Roman genelal Belisarius's successful conquest of the Vandals in North Africa.After an account of the Ostrogothic tribe and their history, the campaigns of the long war for Italy are described in detail, including the three sieges of Rome, which turned the great city from a bustling metropolis into a desolate ruin. In addition to Belisarius, the Gothic War featured many of history's most colorful antagonists, including Rome's Narses the Eunuch, and the Goths' ruthless and brilliant tactician, Totila. Two appendices provide information about the armies of the Romans and Ostrogoths, including their organization, weapons, and tactics, all of which changed over the course of the war.

One of the most remarkable personalities of the Middle Ages, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen was born in 1194. His parents the reigning Holy Roman Emperor and the heiress to the Kingdom of Sicily belonged to two of the leading ruling families in medieval Europe. The lands controlled by these two families extended from southern Denmark to Sicily, from modern Belgium to Bohemia. Frederick II eventually ruled the joint kingdom, and the story of how he gained and maintained this status is the primary thread running through his life. As a child in Sicily, Frederick was a ward of Pope Innocent III. When he came of age, he sought to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor but only succeeded in 1220 after many years of negotiations with the Vatican, which was reluctant to give up or share power. Resenting the influence and pressure from the papacy, Frederick became its leading opponent. As a result, the new pope, Gregory IX, condemned Frederick as the Antichrist. However, Frederick believed he was a sincere Christian, and led the Sixth Crusade to the Holy Land while under excommunication.As a ruler, Frederick was unusually modern in his sensibilities.Sicily was a cultural melting pot in the thirteenth century and Frederick ended up speaking several languages. He protected Jews and Muslims in his realms and prosecuted Christian heretics throughout his thirty-year reign. Frederick was married three times, and had four legitimate and eleven illegitimate children. He was a polymath with interests ranging from sculpture, architecture, and poetry to mathematics and science in many forms, earning him admiration from his contemporaries who called him Stupor mundi, Wonder of the World. His lifelong interest in hunting with birds of prey led to the writing of the classic work De Arte Venandi cum Avibus (The Art of Falconry), which is still in print. Based on the latest scholarship and written for the general reader, "Frederick II: The Wonder of the World" by Richard Bressler provides the complete story of this complex and fascinating man."

The United States has a debt problem-we owe more than $18 trillion while our gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced in America, is only $17.5 trillion. To pay down the debt, some recommend austerity, cutting federal expenditures. Others suggest increasing taxes, especially on the wealthiest Americans. In Understanding the National Debt: What Every American Needs to Know,economic historian Carl Lane urges that the national debt must be addressed in ways beyond program cuts or tax increase alternatives, but change can only occur when more Americans understand what constitutes our debt and the problems it causes. The gross national debt is composed of two elements: the public debt and "intragovernment holdings." The public debt consists of bonds, bills, and notes purchased by individuals, banks, insurance companies, hedge and retirement funds, foreign governments, and university endowments. Intragovernment holdings refers to money that the U.S. Treasury borrows from other parts of the government, principally Social Security and Medicare.This accounts for approximately a quarter of the gross national debt, but that is money that we owe to ourselves, not another entity.The more the government borrows, the less is available for private sector investment, creating a "squeeze" effect that inhibits economic growth. The most burdensome problem is the interest due each year on the debt. Every dollar spent on interest is a dollar less for other purposes. Those elements of the federal budget which are termed "discretionary" suffer. The mandatory elements of the budget-Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the interest on the debt-must be provided for, but defense and national security, education, energy, infrastructure repair and development, and other needs wind up with less. By understanding the national debt we have an opportunity to address our real debt challenge-its principal and interest.

Seventy million years ago in what would become North America, a monstrous thirty-five-foot-long Cretaceous crocodile lurked on a marshy riverbank. Springing suddenly, its huge jaws trapped and crushed a juvenile hadrosaur. Today, the remains of that ancient crocodile are being painstakingly reconstructed in Colorado, where naturalist Zach Fitzner continues his life-long fascination with this amazing animal family.  In Tears for Crocodilia: Evolution, Ecology, and the Disappearance of One of the World’s Most Ancient Animals, Fitzner tracks the evolution of crocodilians from prehistoric predators to modern endangered wildlife, using his own experiences with these reptiles as a lens to understanding wildlife conservation and our relationship with the natural world. Traveling the world to interact with crocodiles, from observing alligators in a wildlife refuge in Texas and paddling a canoe in the Everglades searching for crocodiles to trekking the jungles in Nepal to find endangered gharials, the author expresses a wonder in exploring these diverse ecosystems, making a connection between crocodilians and the lands they live in. As the story follows crocodilians, it also illuminates their often complicated relationship with humans, from crocodile cults in ancient Egypt to American alligators living on golf courses. Fitzner also closely examines the dark side of this relationship, including habitat destruction and poaching as well as the mechanistic view of traditional conservation that turns these magnificent animals into agricultural products. Tears for Crocodilia delves deeply into issues of wildlife conservation, ethics, and how we can coexist with other creatures. It is also a tribute to a magnificent group of animals, survivors from the age of dinosaurs.

The year’s best articles from the leading on-line source of new research on the Revolution and Founding erasThe Journal of the American Revolution, Annual Volume 2022, presents the journal’s best historical research and writing over the past calendar year. The volume is designed for institutions, scholars, and enthusiasts to provide a convenient overview of the latest research and scholarship in American Revolution and Founding Era studies. This year's articles are:Massachusettensis and Novanglus: The Last Great Debate Prior to the War by James M. SmithWampum Belts to Canada: Stockbridge Indian Ambassadors’ Dangerous 1775 Peace Mission by Mark R. AndersonEthan Allen’s “Motley Parcel of Soldiery” at Montreal by Mark R. AndersonThe Devil at the Helm: A Quote That Went Astray by Don N. HagistThomas Knowlton’s Revolution by David PriceMajor Robert Rogers and the American Revolution by Scott M. SmithLa Petite Guerre and Indian Irregular Manner of War: Siblings, But Not Twins by Brian GerringGeorge Washington and the First Mandatory Immunization by Richard J. WertherFrench Adventurers, Patriots, and Pretentious Imposters in the Fight for American Independence by Arthur S. LefkowitzThe Cherokee-American War from the Cherokee Perspective by Jordan BakerThe Numerical Strength of George Washington’s Army During the 1777 Philadelphia Campaign by Gary Ecelbarger and Michael C. HarrisA Reconsideration of Continental Army Numerical Strength at Valley Forge by Gary Ecelbarger and Michael C. HarrisAmerican Indians at Valley Forge by Joseph Lee BoyleThe Discovery of a Letter from a Soldier of the First Rhode Island Regiment by Christian McBurney“The Predicament We Are In”: How Paperwork Saved the Continental Army by Mike MathenySir Henry Clinton’s Generalship by John FerlingThe Varick Transcripts and the Preservation of the War by Justin McHenry“A Mere Youth”: James Monroe’s Revolutionary War by John A. RuddimaHaitian Soldiers at the Siege of Savannah by Robert S. DavisGeorge Washington’s Culper Spy Ring: Separating Fact from Fiction by Bill BleyerTexas, Cattle, Cowboys, Ranchers, Indian Raids, and the American Revolution by George KotlikThe Odyssey of Loyalist Colonel Samuel Bryan by Douglas R. Dorney, Jr.“She Had Gone to the Army . . . to Her Husband”: Judith Lines’s Unremarked Life by John U. ReesThe Yorktown Tragedy: George Washington’s Slave Roundup by Gregory J. W. UrwinSuch as are Absolutely Free: Benjamin Thompson’s Black Troopers by Todd W. BraistedThe King of Sweden: Friendly Foe of the United States by Richard WertherShifting Indian Policy of the Articles of Confederation by John DeLeeJustice, Mercy, and Treason: John Marshall’s and Mercy Otis Warren’s Treatments of Benedict Arnold by Ray MiranteA Chance Amiss: George Washington and the Fiasco of Spain’s Gift Diplomacy by Elisa VargasThe Constitutional Convention Debates the Electoral College by Jason YonceRespected Citizen of Washington City: The Mystery of  Will Costin, Freed Mount Vernon Slave by David O. StewartThe Impeachment of Senator William Blount  by Andrew A. Zellers-FrederickInstinctive Temporary Unity: Examining Public Opinion During the Whiskey Rebellion by Jonathan Curran“Good and Sufficient Testimony”: The Development of the Revolutionary War Pension Plan by Michael Barbieri

The Story of the Many Ill-Fated Attempts by Europeans to Create Permanent Settlements in the New World The nations of the modern Americas began as successful colonies, but not all colonies succeeded, and the margin between colonies that survived and those that failed was small. Both contribute to our understanding of the ordeals of the Europeans who first settled in the New World and of the Native Americans who had to interact with them, but with the exception of the famous lost Roanoke colony, the failed colonies of North America remain largely unknown except to specialists in colonial history. The Spanish and French repeatedly attempted to colonize parts of Georgia, Florida, and Virginia, while the Dutch, French, and English sought to establish permanent settlements along the northern waterways of the New World. The greatest problem faced by every colony was the specter of starvation. Native Americans gave food to newly arrived colonists, but such generosity could not endure. Indigenous people soon realized that colonists of every nationality were prepared to make war against Native peoples, conquer, subjugate, and even massacre whole communities unless they were cooperative and offered no resistance to the intrusion into their territory. In response, Native Americans withheld aid or resorted to retaliatory violence, dooming many European settlements. In We Could Perceive No Sign of Them: Failed Colonies in North America, 1526–1689, historians David MacDonald and Raine Waters tell the fascinating stories of the many attempts to establish a European foothold in the New World, from the first Spanish colony in 1526 on the coast of Georgia to the final disastrous French endeavors near the arctic. Using primary source texts, the authors synthesize the shared experiences of Europeans to better understand the very fine line between success and failure and the varieties of Native American responses.

The British campaign to capture Fort Carillon on the Ticonderoga Peninsula in 1758 resulted in the largest battle of the French and Indian War. Crafted by Prime Minister William Pitt, the scope and scale of the British effort was staggering, calling for their northern colonies to raise 20,000 men to rendezvous with the British Regulars at Albany. The directive would test the patience, resources, and will of the colonial governments as well as that of the newly appointed the British commander-in-chief, General James Abercrombie. For the defenders of New France matters were dire. Reports were arriving that Abercrombie’s numbers were over twice the entire fighting strength of Canada. For the French field commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, there were few options. The Marquis had long opposed defending frontier forts, calling for abandoning these posts at the first sign of threat in order to conserve the colony’s resources. The French Governor disagreed and dispatched Montcalm and his white-coated French regulars with orders to defend Fort Carillon. With his army the only thing that stood between the British and the interior of Canada, there appeared to be a single path before the Marquis. Whether the Governor liked it or not, a rearguard action followed by a retreat down Lake Champlain was the only answer that would leave the army of Canada in position to fight again. Yet, within the span of a few days Montcalm would set these views aside, and suddenly risk both his army and the fate of Canada on a single risky battle.Based on journals, letters, and accounts of the participants on both sides, The Road to Ticonderoga: The Campaign of 1758 in the Champlain Valley by Michael G. Laramie recounts this unexpected tale of victory and defeat on the North American frontier. Here we learn how the unexpected death of a dynamic leader, George Howe, elder brother of Richard and William, nearly crushed “the soul of General Abercrombie’s army,” leading to misinterpreted orders and hesitation on the part of the British. At the same time, the French commander perilously underestimated the ability of his own forces while overestimating his enemy’s before his fateful and unexpected decision to make his stand at Ticonderoga. With lessons and repercussions for future warfare in North America, The Road to Ticonderoga shows how a series of small mistakes can cascade into a catastrophe under weak leadership—or be exploited by a strong one.

In the winter of 1692 something terrible and frightening began in Salem Village. It started with several villagers having strange fits, screaming, and unnaturally contorting themselves, and ended with almost two hundred people in jail, and at least twenty-five dead. Witchcraft accusations—claims that some inhabitants had forsaken God to become servants of the Devil—spread from Salem Village across Massachusetts, ensnaring innocent people from all strata of society under a burden of assumed guilt. One of the most significant accusations, and most unlikely, was against a seventy-one-year-old grandmother, Rebecca Nurse.The accusations against Nurse, a well-respected member in the community, seemed unbelievable. Unflinchingly, this ailing elderly woman insisted on her innocence and refused to falsely confess. Supported by many in Salem, Nurse’s family and neighbors challenged her accusers in court and prepared a thorough defense for her, yet nothing could surmount the fear of witchcraft, and she was sentenced to death. Nurse, seen as a martyr for the truth, later became the first person accused of witchcraft to be memorialized in North America.In A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse, the first full account of Nurse’s life, Daniel A. Gagnon vividly recreates seventeenth-century Salem, and in the process challenges previous interpretations of Nurse’s life and the 1692 witch hunt in general. Through primary source research, he reveals how the Nurse family’s role in several disputes prior to the witch hunt was different than previously thought, as well as how Nurse’s case helps answer the important question of whether the accusations of witchcraft were caused by mental illness or malicious intent. A Salem Witch reveals a remarkable woman whose legacy has transformed how the witch hunt has been remembered and memorialized.

On May 9, 1781, American general Nathanael Greene and his Continental army were outside of British-held Camden, South Carolina. Greene was despondent and contemplating resigning his commission, believing he could not force the British out of the fortified village. His compatriot Francis Marion, standing before Fort Motte forty miles to the south, was also in the same mood, informing Greene that he was frustrated by the militia, and he was going to resign after the fort’s capture. The next day, Lord Francis Rawdon, commander of the Camden garrison and all British field forces in South Carolina, abandoned that backcountry village. Marion would capture Fort Motte two days later. In The Battles of Fort Watson and Fort Motte, 1781, the latest in the Small Battles Series, historian and archaeologist Steven D. Smith relates the history of four critical weeks from April 12 until May 12, 1781, in which the tide of the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War turned in favor of the Americans. The book focuses on General Francis Marion’s and Colonel Henry Lee’s capture of two key British forts, Fort Watson and Fort Motte, coordinating with Nathanael Greene in retaking the South Carolina backcountry. These posts defended the supply line between Charleston and the British-occupied villages of Camden and Ninety Six. Although there would be much more fighting to do, once the two forts were lost, the British had to abandon the backcountry or starve. The British would never again be on the strategic offensive and were confined to the Charleston environs until they abandoned the city in December 1782. The story of the capture of the forts is enhanced and enlightened by the findings of archaeological investigation at each site—and even mythology, such as Mrs. Motte providing the fire arrows used to burn her fortified house—which are seamlessly integrated into the account, providing a unique perspective on these important events during the Southern Campaign.

TIn late 1778, leading a small force of one hundred and fifty men, George Rogers Clark entered the Illinois Country where they would capture Great Britain’s major posts along the Mississippi and take British lieutenant governor Henry Hamilton prisoner to achieve one of the most singular victories during the American Revolution. Having suffered at the hands of British-supported Native American raids in Kentucky, Clark and his men embraced a confrontational approach, lumping all Native American nations together as inveterate blood enemies. For years, Clark’s daring achievement was lionized as the embodiment of American initiative. Now, in light of Clark’s treatment and participation in the subjugation of Native peoples, his legacy has reversed, with his statue at the University of Virginia recently being removed. His lack of nuance led him to misinterpret Indian responses to his military campaign and conclude that his approach produced results. In fact, many Native American nations simply used the American presence on the Mississippi to extort greater support from the British. In Till the Extinction of This Rebellion: George Rogers Clark, Frontier Warfare, and the Illinois Campaign of 1778–1779 Eric Sterner views the campaign from the American, British, and Indigenous perspectives and illustrates the wide geographic impact of the American Revolution west of the Appalachians, particularly on the French and Native American communities in the area.Clark’s expedition was sanctioned by Virginia in order to protect its western border, and the author provides an overview of this rationale along with the strategies, tactics, and logistics Clark employed, particularly his ability to operate over great distances in remote areas. In particular, the author pays close attention to the psychological battlefield and how Clark combined mobility, surprise, and a calculated reputation for violence—a tactic respected by the Native peoples—to achieve dominance over his adversaries, often enabling the Americans to achieve their goals without harming anyone. The book culminates with the capture of Fort Sackville/Vincennes, in which Clark and his men fought the only pitched battle of the Illinois Campaign. The resounding success of Clark’s expedition laid the foundation for credible American postwar claims to lands as far west as the Mississippi, opening even more territory to new settlements at the expense of the Native peoples. Till the Extinction of This Rebellion is an important contribution to understanding the impact of the American Revolution on both Native peoples and westward expansion.

The Final Volume in the Award-Winning Wars for North America Trilogy: King William's, Queen Anne's and King George's WarsKing George’s War and the Thirty-Year Peace continues the contest for North America from the end of Queen Anne’s War in 1713, marking the beginning of the Thirty-Year Peace, through the start of King George’s War in 1744, to its conclusion with the signing of Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle four years later. While there would be little fighting between the French, Spanish, and British colonies in North America during the Thirty-Year Peace—the Franco-Spanish conflict of 1719 being an exception—for the French and British internally it did not prove to be peaceful. Conflicts with former Indigenous allies erupted, including with the Three Years War, the Yamassee War, and the Natchez and Chickasaw Wars. In the south the peace was ruptured by the opening of the War of Jenkin’s Ear in 1739, which led to an attempt by South Carolina and the new colony of Georgia to seize Spanish St. Augustine, and a counter-attack by St. Augustine and Cuba aimed at the destruction of the two British colonies. While this Anglo-Spanish conflict would shift farther south into the Caribbean, to the north, news of another war between France and Britain would arrive in 1744. King George’s War, the North American component of Europe’s War of Austrian Succession, would start in Nova Scotia with French attacks on the weakly held British colony. This provocation inspired a response in the form of one of the boldest expeditions of the colonial period—Massachusetts Governor William Shirley’s successful campaign against Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. With the French fortress in British hands and the cry of delenda est Canadaechoing through the American colonial assemblies, Shirley turned to the conquest of French Canada and convinced London to dispatch a fleet to assist in the capture of Montreal and Quebec. In Paris, news of Louisbourg’s surrender elicited an unexpected reaction in the form of one of the largest French naval expeditions ever sent to North America, with explicit orders to retake Cape Breton and expel the British from Nova Scotia. Thus, by the summer of 1746, both British and French sentries scanned the eastern horizon daily for a fleet that would determine the destiny of the conflict, but neither would be happy with what they found. The final volume in Michael G. Laramie’s acclaimed histories of the European struggle for North America that set the stage for the French and Indian War, King George’s War and the Thirty-Year Peace: The Third Contest for North America, 1714–1748, takes the reader along with the combatants into the field and waterways, including Native American, French, Spanish, Provincial, and British. Based on a rich variety of primary sources and fully illustrated with original maps, this volume joins the author’s King William’s War and Queen Anne’s War as the modern history of these lesser-known—but enormously important—conflicts that shaped the political story of North America.

FINALIST FOR THE 2025 AMERICAN BATTLEFIELD TRUST PRIZE FOR HISTORYOver the past several decades, the history of the American Revolution in the South has undergone a transformation to better incorporate regional events into the greater narrative of the war. Among these events was the vicious “backcountry” war from the Georgia border, across the South Carolina wilderness, to the North Carolina Piedmont between rebel Americans and loyalist and British forces. Centered in South Carolina, this running battle saw some of the most intense and continuous fighting of the war, and from its skirmishes, feints, and sieges, three key leaders emerged: American partisans Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion and Thomas “Gamecock” Sumter, and British Legion commander Banastre “Bloody Ban” Tarleton.For the first time, Backcountry War: The Rise of Francis Marion, Banastre Tarleton, and Thomas Sumter by Andrew Waters frames the history of these three men into in a single narrative, focusing on the events of 1780 in South Carolina that witnessed their collective ascendance from common soldiers to American legends. It was a time when British victories at Charleston and Camden left the Continental Army in tatters and the entire American South vulnerable to British conquest. Yet in those dark hours, Sumter, Marion, and others like them rose in the swamps and hills of the South Carolina wilderness. Fighting a wildly successful partisan war against better trained and better equipped British forces, including Tarleton’s British Legion, with victories at lesser-known places like Hanging Rock and Nelson’s Ferry, they gained precious months for the reorganizing Continental Army. Their collective efforts led to the stunning American victory at Cowpens and a stalemate at Guilford’s Courthouse the following year that finally convinced British general Charles Cornwallis to abandon the Carolinas for Virginia. With background biographies of its three main protagonists, a thorough sketch of Great Britain’s Southern Strategy, and a sociocultural examination of the South Carolina frontier in the years leading up to the American Revolution, Backcountry War offers a fresh perspective on an extraordinary chapter of American history and a compelling account of the deadly contest between three of the war’s most charismatic leaders.

In the preface to his biography of John Brown, W. E. B. Du Bois writes that the book “is at once a record of and a tribute to the man who of all Americans has perhaps come nearest to touching the real souls of black folk.” Du Bois alludes to this in Souls of Black Folk when he describes John Brown’s actions: “led by [Charles Lenox] Remond, [William Cooper] Nell, [William] Wells-Brown, and [Frederick] Douglass, a new period of self-assertion and self-development dawned. To be sure, ultimate freedom and assimilation was the ideal before the leaders, but the assertion of the manhood rights of the Negro by himself was the main reliance, and John Brown’s raid was the extreme of its logic.” First published in 1909, the same year Du Bois helped found the NAACP, John Brown is a studious account of the fiery abolitionist’s life, while throughout are asides intertwined in the narrative that provide additional insights into Du Bois’s thoughts on race and America. The life of John Brown carries a message that still resonates in twenty-first century, and Du Bois makes it his refrain throughout this volume: “The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”This edition is introduced by John Brown scholar William S. King, who provides the background to the writing of the biography which took place during a turbulent time of race relations and competing visions from Booker T. Washington and Du Bois for the future of Black Americans. “Du Bois,” King reminds us, “remains one of the best writers on this phase of American history, which is still at our core.”

A Common Man’s Survival After Being Captured at the Battle of Dunbar and Sold into Servitude in America In the winter of 1650–51, one hundred fifty ragged and hungry Scottish prisoners of war arrived at Massachusetts Bay Colony, where they were sold as indentured laborers for 20 to 30 pounds each. Among them was Thomas Doughty, a common foot soldier who had survived the Battle of Dunbar, a forced marched of 100 miles without food or water, imprisonment in Durham Cathedral, and a difficult Atlantic crossing. An ordinary individual who experienced extraordinary events, Doughty was among some 420 Scottish soldiers who were captured during the War of the Three Kingdoms, transported to America, and sold between 1650 and 1651. Their experiences offer a fresh perspective on seventeenth-­century life. The Involuntary American: A Scottish Prisoner’s Journey to the New World by Carol Gardner describes Doughty’s life as a soldier, prisoner of war, exile, servant, lumberman, miller, and ultimately free landowner. It follows him and his peers through critical events: the apex of the Little Ice Age, the War of the Three Kingdoms, the colonization of New England, the burgeoning transatlantic trade in servants and slaves, King Philip’s and King William’s wars, and the Salem witch crisis. First­person accounts of individuals who lived through those events—Scottish, English, Puritan, Native American, wealthy, poor, working class, educated or not— provide rich period detail and a variety of perspectives. The Involuntary American demonstrates how even indi­viduals of humble circumstances were swept into the mael­strom of the First Global Age. It expands our understanding of immigration to the colonies, colonial servitude, the link­ages and tensions between Europe, Massachusetts Bay, and America’s northeastern frontier, and of New England socie­ty in the early colonial period.

A Short History of the Politics of Reconstruction in a Changing AmericaOn December 5, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant transmitted his eighth and final message to Congress. In reviewing his tenure as president, Grant proclaimed, “Mistakes have been made,” though he assured Congress, his administration’s “failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent.” Until recently, scholars have portrayed Grant as among the country’s worst chief executives. Though the scholarly consensus about Grant’s presidency is changing, the general public knows little, if anything, about his two terms, other than their outsized reputation for corruption. While scandals are undoubtedly part of the story, there is more to Grant’s presidency: Grant faced the Panic of 1873, the severest economic depression in U.S. history, defeated the powerful Senator Charles Sumner on the annexation of Cuba, and deftly avoided war with Spain while laying the groundwork for the “special relationship” between Great Britain and the United States. Grant’s efforts to ensure justice for African Americans and American Indians, however, were undercut by his own decisions and by the contradictory demands of the various constituencies that made up the Republican Party.In The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: Preserving the Civil War’s Legacy, historian Paul Kahan focuses on the unique political, economic, and cultural forces unleashed by the Civil War and how Grant addressed these issues during his tumultuous two terms as chief executive. A timely reassessment, The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant sheds new light on the business of politics in the decade after the Civil War and portrays an energetic and even progressive executive whose legacy has been overshadowed by both his wartime service and his administration’s many scandals.

The men who flew American heavy bombers over Europe in World War II were very young—most were either in their late teens or early twenties. Before they deployed overseas, they were military amateurs who knew nothing of the violent, dangerous world of air warfare. Heavy bombers flew over Europe in steady formations at high altitudes. There they faced a gauntlet of razor sharp antiaircraft artillery bursts and fighter aircraft firing cannons that shattered Plexiglas, metal, engines, and bone. It is no wonder that bomber crews suffered some of the highest casualty rates of any service during the war. Yet, their courage and sacrifice would help the Allies secure an overwhelming victory over Hitler’s Germany. That bravery and the extreme dangers these young men faced in combat over Europe are vividly portrayed in The Cruel Sky: A Heavy Bomber Group in World War II. Using the 451st Bombardment Group (Heavy) of the Fifteenth Air Force as the focus for this compelling narrative, author Robert Thompson describes how the bomber group was established and trained, what is took to fly its aircraft—the Consolidated B-24 Liberator—the opposition they faced, and the harrowing stories of the missions for which the group received three Distinguished Unit Citations, one of only two units so honored during World War II. Relying on official reports and firsthand accounts of those who flew with the 451st, the book provides a fresh and personal perspective of the deadly air war over Europe that was critical in defeating the Nazis and liberating millions.

The second volume of George Washington’s Momentous Year picks up where Volume 1 concluded, in the wake of the Battle of Whitemarsh in early December 1777, with the British army returning to Philadelphia and French officials opening formal negotiations with American diplomats, primarily as a result of what they felt was a surprising and successful Philadelphia campaign by George Washington. Washington’s army now moved westward, across the Schuylkill River, to the most iconic encampment in American history: Valley Forge. Here the story is new and dynamic. Gary Ecelbarger’s original research revises the history of this crucial period, presenting for the first time Washington’s aggressive plan to attack Philadelphia soon after arriving at Valley Forge and the fact that the encamped army was much larger than previously understood. During this time, Washington confronted challenges to his military authority while deftly solving crises of supply and recruitment. With the aid of Baron von Steuben, he established and trained the first American professional army. Following the Valley Forge encampment, the author takes the reader with the reinvigorated Continental army as it marches across the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers and into New Jersey to confront Sir Henry Clinton’s crown forces on their way from Philadelphia to New York City. Having ordered an advance corps of veterans to engage the British, they make contact at Monmouth Courthouse near Freehold, New Jersey. As Washington approaches the action, he confronts thousands of his troops retreating around him. In one of the most stirring events of the Revolution, Washington is able to rally his men, reclaim the battlefield and achieve a hard-fought victory. The battle gave notice to the British that the American army would be a formidable foe going forward. This engrossing history of the most significant twelve months of the American Revolution enables the reader to understand and appreciate the astounding accomplishment of George Washington and his military aides: the simultaneous emergence of a new, capable army and a strategy that would win the War for Independence.

They crossed the ocean to fight in someone else's war. They came for glory, honor, and plunder. Instead, they became America's most famous captives.In Steven Bier's groundbreaking book, Facing Washington's Crossing: The Hessians at the Battle of Trenton, old stereotypes are shattered and new information emerges. Using newly translated documents, rare hard-to-find material, and obscure nearly-forgotten sources, Facing Washington's Crossing rewrites our understanding of the Battle of Trenton.Bier maintains a gripping narrative, following the military exploits of a Hessian Brigade through six brutal battles. From their crushing victories in New York to the shocking reversal in the snow-covered village of Trenton, witness how professional European soldiers faced an enemy unlike any they had encountered.Bier offers a fresh perspective by narrating the story through Hessian eyes, presenting fascinating details: shipboard cockfights, St. Elmo's fires, how the militaristic Hessians were influenced by the peaceful philosopher Voltaire, when the Royal Navy accidentally landed the Hessians on a deserted island, and how Emanuel Leutze's iconic painting of Washington crossing the Delaware was created in a tavern.The author traces the Hessian Prince's decision to hire out his army, the army’s harrowing voyage across the Atlantic, and the numerous clashes leading up to Trenton. Washington’s Crossing and the subsequent battle itself are fully recounted, providing a much-needed understanding of the Hessian experience.For 250 years, the story has been told mostly from one side. Now the essential counterpoint is finally revealed.

The year’s best articles from the leading on-line source of new research on the Revolution and Founding erasThe Journal of the American Revolution, Annual Volume 2025, presents the journal’s best historical research and writing over the past calendar year. The volume of thirty-five articles is designed for institutions, scholars, and enthusiasts to provide a convenient overview of the latest research and scholarship in American Revolution and Founding Era studies.

How European settlers learned of the vast North American continent was often through the accounts of men who individually or in groups trekked into the wilderness. Their chief motivation was ascertaining or obtaining natural resources for commerce, such as beaver pelts and other hides, which took them from the eastern forests, across the Great Plains, into the Rocky Mountains, or to the Pacific Ocean—years before the celebrated Lewis and Clark Expedition. Their information about Indigenous Peoples, the landscape, and the waterways influenced the course of North American history. While a few frontiersmen, such as Daniel Boone, are well known, most—predominantly Canadian and French—are forgotten, their activities recalled only by scholars. Encountering North America: Profiles of Frontiersmen, 1650–1820 by David MacDonald and Raine Waters presents men whose far-reaching explorations opened the continent to further settlements and trade routes. One was torn between the French and British, while another between Indigenous and white societies. One was Spanish. One was an administrator, a force for order in an unsettled world. Two were certainly homicidal. As with the authors’ previous volumes on failed European attempts to colonize both North and South America, each narrative is supported by discursive commentary on the primary source materials available.

Winner of the 2026 Book of the Year Award, George Washington American Revolution Round Table, Washington, DCThe killing of Jane McCrea on July 26, 1777, on the outskirts of a village in the northern Hudson Valley, would unexpectedly rupture the British advance from Canada that was meant to crush the American Revolution in one knockout blow. On that day, twenty-five-year-old McCrea, an unremarkable person preparing for an impending marriage, was assaulted, scalped, and killed by a group of Native Americans in the employ of British general John Burgoyne. Though the murder was but one of many civilian deaths in a fierce war zone, McCrea’s killing had far-reaching consequences for each of the three major parties involved in the Northern Campaign of 1777. In America, she became the great cause célèbre of the Revolution, the sympathetic female victim of the war symbolizing the righteousness of The Cause. In Britain, she was a human-rights tragedy that tarnished the polished surface of British honor and galvanized Whig politicians who shouted out her name in Parliament as an example of how low the nation had fallen. For Native peoples, recruited by both the British and the Americans, and caught in the middle of a war staged on ancestral grounds, McCrea’s killing was the opening salvo in a vicious chain of bloody retribution that led to the disintegration of the venerable Iroquois Confederacy and the obliteration of Native homelands. After the war, the nightmarish image of a young Jane McCrea slaughtered on the New York frontier would obsess white Americans who came to fear Native peoples as irredeemable savages. Her murder would help justify the expulsion of Indigenous tribes and open the doors for an expansionary United States that was fully intent on transforming the American continent into its own image.The Killing of Jane McCrea: An American Tragedy on the Revolutionary Frontier by distinguished historian Paul Staiti undertakes for the first time a comprehensive investigation into McCrea’s life, death, and especially her long and strange afterlife. Using both visual arts and written records, the author reassembles the scattered fragments to illuminate a historical terrain long since shrouded in misinformation, mired in controversy, and relegated to mythology. Coming into view is a major portrait of the persons, cultures, actions, and motives that fatally converged on that hot July morning in 1777.

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century warfare centered on sieges, not seeking out and destroying the enemy’s army in battle. A captured fortress or town was a bargaining piece in the inevitable peace treaty between warring monarchs, an approach even more prevalent during the long and bitter colonial conflicts in North America. Given the vast distances involved, the lack of manpower, and limited logistical resources, each war in North America became one of position—a war of forts. Sentinels by the Sea: Coastal Fortifications of Colonial New England and Nova Scotia by award-winning historian Michael G. Laramie examines the network of forts that stood in opposition to one another during the lengthy conflict between France and England, from 1689 to 1763, in northeastern North America.The story of these strongholds, from the earliest in Boston Harbor to the major fortress at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, is compiled from a wide range of primary sources: firsthand letters, journals, and accounts from the cabinet ministers and policy makers in Paris, London, Quebec, and Boston, to the personal correspondence and observations of the military engineers and soldiers who faced the challenge of the building these works, as well as the perils that came with attacking or defending them. Their exploits and efforts would not only determine the fate of these fortifications, but also play a prominent role in settling the matter of whether France or Great Britain would control North America and its resources. Fully illustrated, Sentinels by the Sea provides details of the design, construction, armaments, and battles surrounding these important forts that stretched across one of the most contested areas in North American history.

An Uprising by New Mexicans and Native Americans Against American Rule that Continues to Resonate TodayOn the morning of January 19, 1847, Charles Bent, the newly appointed governor of the American-claimed territory of New Mexico, was savagely killed at his home in Don Fernando de Taos, a small, remote town located north of Santa Fe. Those responsible for Bent’s murder were New Mexican settlers and Indians from nearby Taos Pueblo who refused to recognize the United States occupation. With emotions rubbed raw, the natives continued their bloodbath until five more leading citizens were massacred in Taos. During the ensuing months, American civilians and soldiers, along with scores of New Mexicans and Taos Indians, were killed and wounded throughout the region. Less than a month following Bent’s murder, in a two-day battle, volunteer and regular elements of an American army under the command of Colonel Sterling Price emerged victorious after bombarding the insurrectionists at their refuge in the church at Taos Pueblo. Surviving participants in the earlier Taos murders were arrested, tried in American-dominated courts, and, within weeks, hanged for their actions. The murder of Bent and the others at Taos and the subsequent trials and executions brought with them misunderstanding, controversy, mistrust, and recrimination on both sides of the issue. The events also subjected President James K. Polk’s administration to censure over what some critics believed was an overextension of presidential authority in claiming New Mexico as a territory.In Revolt at Taos: The New Mexican and Indian Insurrection of 1847, writer and historian James A. Crutchfield explores the fast-moving events surrounding the bloody revolt which left native inhabitants of New Mexico wondering how their neighbors and kinsmen could be legally tried, found guilty, and executed for acts they considered to have been honorable ones committed in defense of their country. These concerns have never been adequately addressed and their struggle has been all but scrubbed from the history of American expansion.

A detailed study of the turning point in one of the most important battles in American historyThe Battle of Brandywine, fought on September 11, 1777, along its namesake creek in the bucolic Pennsylvania countryside, was one of the largest engagements of the Revolutionary War. To those who participated in this massive battle, spread out over ten square miles and lasting from late afternoon until dark, it was unforgettable. Soon after the action, Major Joseph Bloomfield of the 3rd New Jersey recorded that it was “the grandest scene I ever saw, a sight beyond description.” Brandywine was the first major battle for the recently reorganized Continental Army. Units had fought in small engagements, but not until Brandywine did the army fight as a whole against the British. As the two armies clashed, a ferocious and desperate action developed on a hill at the heart of the battlefield, and it was here where the battle’s outcome was determined.  Despite its size and significance—Brandywine was the third bloodiest engagement of the war, with 1,300 American and 581 British casualties—the battle has been the subject of very few studies. In Decision at Brandywine: The Battle on Birmingham Hill, historian Robert M. Dunkerly analyzes the fighting near the Birmingham Meeting House where the battle turned. By dissecting the struggle on Birmingham Hill in detail, he offers a case study in weapons, tactics, and terrain analysis critical to a holistic understanding of the entire battle and what it would mean for the future of the Continental Army. In the process he not only explains how the Continental Army’s lack of uniformed training and inexperience in large open-field battles played a major role in their defeat, but also provides important information about Revolutionary War combat in general.