Explore the Museum's historic Old City neighborhood and iconic Revolutionary-era sites on daily walking tours. Info & Tickets

Dismiss notification

About

Curated by Museum staff since 2013, Read the Revolution features excerpts from thought-provoking books about the American Revolution. Read the Revolution was created with thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. Subscribe to get the biweekly Read the Revolution featured excerpts emailed right to your inbox for free.

Subscribe Now

Speaker Series

Inspired by the Read the Revolution featured excerpts, the Read the Revolution Speaker Series brings celebrated authors and historians to the Museum for lively, facilitated discussions of their work. Each Read the Revolution Speaker Series program, hosted by Museum President & CEO Dr. R. Scott Stephenson, includes a special talk and audience Q&A.

About the Series

All Books

Showing 81–90 of 205 items
 Rtr The Disaffected

The Disaffected

Posted: September 25, 2019
Read an excerpt from Aaron Sullivan's book, The Disaffected: Britain’s Occupation of Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
Read More
 Rtr With Zeal And With Bayonets Only

With Zeal and With Bayonets Only

Posted: September 11, 2019
Read an excerpt from Matthew H. Spring’s With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783.
Read More
 Rtr Britons Forging The Nation

Britons

Posted: August 28, 2019
Read an excerpt from Linda Colley's book, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837.
Read More
Liberty's Exiles book cover

Liberty's Exiles

Posted: August 14, 2019
This excerpt from Maya Jasanoff illustrates exiled loyalists' experience and what it meant as an American colonist returning to Great Britain after defeat.
Read More
Slave Counterpoint book cover

Slave Counterpoint

Posted: July 24, 2019
This excerpt from Phillip Morgan explains the value of studying slave culture in the eighteenth century and “humanizing the institution of slavery.”
Read More
Declaration book cover

Declaration

Posted: June 12, 2019
This excerpt by William Hogeland explores the people, backroom politicking, and passions that ignited our pursuit of liberty during the American Revolution.
Read More
The Unruly City Book Cover

The Unruly City

Posted: May 22, 2019
This excerpt from Mike Rapport shows London’s response to the American Revolution - Londoners sought political reforms but not a British revolution.
Read More
The Martyr and the Traitor Book Cover

The Martyr and the Traitor

Posted: May 08, 2019
This excerpt from Virginia DeJohn Anderson adds complexity to our understanding of choosing sides in the Revolutionary era.
Read More
Archaeology at the Site of the Museum of the American Revolution Book Cover

Archaeology at the Site of the Museum of the American Revolution

Posted: April 24, 2019
Read this timeline by historical archaeologist Rebecca Yamin about the artifacts discovered during the excavation of Philadelphia's newest Museum.
Read More
This image shows the book cover of Lexington and Concord: The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution by Arthur Tourtellot. It is a white background with three colored illustrations in the middle showing scenes from the battle. The left and right images are soldiers in the battlefield and the middle image shows Redcoats in front of a building.

Lexington and Concord

Posted: April 10, 2019
This excerpt from Arthur Tourtellot takes us on a journey into the events of Lexington and Concord starting with an overview of the British Army in Boston
Read More
9 of 21 pages