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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.

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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 161–170 of 199 items
This image depicts the book cover of The Gun, The Ship, and The Pen by Linda Colley. The text of the title is written in large blue letters. There is an illustration, pictures vertically on the left side of the book cover. It shows a sailor, with his back to the viewer, looking out at a ship on fire in the sea.

The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen

Posted: May 12, 2021
Read an excerpt from historian Linda Colley's new book, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World.
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Image 091820 Rtr179 Hemingses Monticello Annette Gordon Reed Screen Shot 2020 09 18 At 1131 56 Am

The Hemingses of Monticello

Posted: September 23, 2020
Read an excerpt from Annette Gordon-Reed's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.
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Book cover for The Howe Dynasty by Julie Flavell

The Howe Dynasty

Posted: January 12, 2022
Read an excerpt from Julie Flavell's book, The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Britain’s Wars for America.
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Image 090920 Rtr178 Ideological Origins American Revolution Bailyn

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Posted: September 09, 2020
Read an excerpt from Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.
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 Rtr The Indian World Of George Washington

The Indian World of George Washington

Posted: October 24, 2018
This excerpt from Colin Calloway shows George Washington’s initial lack of understanding of Native allies and their impact on the nation’s founding
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The Internal Enemy Book Cover

The Internal Enemy

Posted: September 14, 2016
This excerpt from Alan Taylor examines the complex subject of slavery in a state dedicated to liberty and freedom, yet enslaved two-fifths of the population
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The King's Three Faces Book Cover

The King's Three Faces

Posted: October 26, 2016
This excerpt from Brendan McConville discusses the physical and symbolic destruction of objects associated with the British Monarchy.
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This image shows the book cover of The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation by Maureen Taylor. The background is a deep, brown and the title of the book is written in white at the top. On the bottom is Maureen’s name, also written in white. In the center are four framed photographs of older people from the Revolutionary generation.

The Last Muster

Posted: December 02, 2013
Read this excerpt from Maureen Taylor’s The Last Muster to learn more about three veterans of the American Revolution—Nathaniel Ames, Agrippa Hull, and Ezra Green.
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The Marketplace of Revolution book cover

The Marketplace of Revolution

Posted: March 11, 2014
This excerpt from T.H. Breen looks at how one city’s rebellion, the Boston Tea Party, became an entire people’s war and created a common cause of America.
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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.
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