2024 Revolutionary Read - '1774: The Long Year of Revolution' by Mary Beth Norton.

In this masterly work of history, the culmination of more than four decades of research and thought, Mary Beth Norton looks at the sixteen months leading up to the clashes at Lexington and Concord in mid-April 1775. This was the critical, and often overlooked, period when colonists traditionally loyal to King George III began their discordant “discussions” that led them to their acceptance of the inevitability of war against the British Empire.

Drawing extensively on pamphlets, newspapers, and personal correspondence, Norton reconstructs colonial political discourse as it took place throughout 1774. Late in the year, conservatives mounted a vigorous campaign criticizing the First Continental Congress. But by then it was too late.

In early 1775, colonial governors informed officials in London that they were unable to thwart the increasing power of local committees and their allied provincial congresses. Although the Declaration of Independence would not be formally adopted until July 1776, Americans had in effect “declared independence ” even before the outbreak of war in April 1775 by obeying the decrees of the provincial governments they had elected rather than colonial officials appointed by the king. Norton captures the tension and drama of this pivotal year and foundational moment in American history and brings it to life as no other historian has done before.

About the Author
A historian of colonial America who has often focused on the experiences of women, Mary Beth Norton is one of the most respected historians in the United States today. She has published books examining women's experiences during the American Revolution, the Salem Witch Trials, and several popular American history textbooks. In 1997, Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in American History. She served as president of the American Historical Association in 2018. Dr. Norton is the Mary Donlon Alger Professor Emeritus of American History at Cornell University.

2023 Revolutionary Read - 'Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776' by Patrick Spero.

Patrick Spero recasts the familiar narrative of the American Revolution, moving the action from the Eastern Seaboard to the treacherous western frontier, today's Pennsylvania and Ohio. In spellbinding detail, Frontier Rebels reveals an often-overlooked truth: the West played a crucial role in igniting the flame of American independence.

In 1763, the Seven Years’ War ended in a spectacular victory for the British. The French army agreed to leave North America, but many Native Americans, fearing that the British Empire would expand onto their lands and conquer them, refused to lay down their weapons. Under the leadership of a shrewd Ottawa warrior named Pontiac, they kept fighting for their freedom, capturing several British forts and devastating many of the westernmost colonial settlements. The British, battered from the costly war, needed to stop the violent attacks on their borderlands. Peace with Pontiac was their only option—if they could convince him to negotiate.

Enter George Croghan, a wily trader-turned-diplomat with close ties to Native Americans. Under the wary eye of the British commander-in-chief, Croghan organized one of the largest peace offerings ever assembled and began a daring voyage into the interior of North America in search of Pontiac.

Meanwhile, a ragtag group of frontiersmen set about stopping this peace deal in its tracks. Furious at the Empire for capitulating to Native groups, whom they considered their sworn enemies, and suspicious of Croghan’s intentions, these colonists turned Native American tactics of warfare on the British Empire. Dressing as Native Americans and smearing their faces in charcoal, these frontiersmen, known as the Black Boys, launched targeted assaults to destroy Croghan’s peace offering before it could be delivered.

The outcome of these interwoven struggles would determine whose independence would prevail on the American frontier—whether freedom would be defined by the British, Native Americans, or colonial settlers.

Patrick Spero, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library housed within the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon. Prior to his current role, he served as Librarian and Director of the Library & Museum of the American Philosophical Society (APS) in Philadelphia. Spero is the author of Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania, Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, and the forthcoming Botany and Betrayal: Andre Michaux, Thomas Jefferson, and the Kentucky Conspiracy of 1793.