The Boston Tea Party, as it later came to be known, was an audacious and revolutionary act. It set the stage for war and cemented certain values in the American psyche that many still cherish today. But why did the Tea Party happen? Whom did it involve? What did it mean? The answers to these questions are far from straightforward.In this thrilling new book, Benjamin L. Carp tells the full story of the Tea Party—exploding myths, exploring the unique city life of Boston, and setting this extraordinary event in a global context for the first time. Bringing vividly to life the diverse array of people and places that the Tea Party brought together—from Chinese tea-pickers to English businessmen, Native American tribes, sugar plantation slaves, and Boston’s ladies of leisure—Carp illuminates how a determined group shook the foundations of a mighty empire, and what this has meant for Americans since. As he reveals many little-known historical facts and considers the Tea Party’s uncertain legacy, he presents a compelling and expansive history of an iconic event in America’s tempestuous past.

     Drawing extensively on pamphlets, newspapers, and personal correspondence, Norton reconstructs colonial political discourse as it happened, showing the vigorous campaign mounted by conservatives criticizing congressional actions. But by then it was too late. In early 1775, governors throughout the colonies informed colonial officials in London that they were unable to thwart the increasing power of the committees and their allied provincial congresses. Although the Declaration of Independence would not be formally adopted until July 1776, Americans, even before the outbreak of war in April 1775, had in effect "declared independence" by obeying the decrees of their new provincial governments rather than colonial officials.

    Designed for the "armchair strategist" with dozens of detailed maps and illustrations, here is a blow-by-blow analysis of the men, commanders, and weaponry used in the famous battles of Bunker Hill, Quebec, Trenton, Princeton, Saratoga, and Cowpens.

    Now, in a revealing work of historical biography, Edward Lengel has written the definitive account of George Washington the soldier.Based largely on Washington’s personal papers, this engrossing book paints a vivid, factual portrait of a man to whom lore and legend so tenaciously cling. To Lengel, Washington was the imperfect commander. Washington possessed no great tactical ingenuity, and his acknowledged “brilliance in retreat” only demonstrates the role luck plays in the fortunes of all great men. He was not an enlisted man’s leader; he made a point of never mingling with his troops. He was not an especially creative military thinker; he fought largely by the book. He was not a professional, but a citizen soldier, who, at a time when warfare demanded that armies maneuver efficiently in precise formation, had little practical training handling men in combat. Yet despite his flaws, Washington was a remarkable figure, a true man of the moment, a leader who possessed a clear strategic, national, and continental vision, and who inspired complete loyalty from his fellow revolutionaries, officers, and enlisted men. America could never have won freedom without him.A trained surveyor, Washington mastered topography and used his superior knowledge of battlegrounds to maximum effect. He appreciated the importance of good allies in times of crisis, and understood well the benefits of coordination of ground and naval forces. Like the American nation itself, he was a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts–a remarkable everyman whose acts determined the course of history. Lengel argues that Washington’s excellence was in his completeness, in how he united the military, political, and personal skills necessary to lead a nation in war and peace. At once informative and engaging, and filled with some eye-opening revelations about Washington, the war for American independence, and the very nature of military command, General George Washington is a book that reintroduces readers to a figure many think they already know.From the Hardcover edition.

    An inside-the-dugout account, based on interviews with the key players among the Angels, Astros, Mets and Red Sox, of a remarkable season and arguably the most spectacular comeback in the history of the sport.

    atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the ensuing death and destruction that led to the end of World War II. The events that culminated in the fall of Japan - which forever changed the course of diplomacy, geopolitics, and warfare in the twentieth century - are vividly recreated through dramatic first-hand accounts of the major participants on both sides of the Pacific. They include: Harry Truman, the inexperienced American president who made the decision that would lead to unprecedented death and destruction; the war-mongering, but mysterious, Japanese Emperor Hirohito, who ultimately presided over his country's surrender; General Leslie Groves, the no-nonsense director of the Manhattan Project; and Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane, the Enola Gay, which dropped the very first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.

    In this book, historian Kevin Kenny explains how this Peaceable Kingdom--benevolent, Quaker, pacifist--gradually disintegrated in the eighteenth century, with disastrous consequences for Native Americans.Kenny recounts how rapacious frontier settlers, most of them of Ulster extraction, began to encroach on Indian land as squatters, while William Penn's sons cast off their father's Quaker heritage and turned instead to fraud, intimidation, and eventually violence during the French and Indian War. In 1763, a group of frontier settlers known as the Paxton Boys exterminated the last twenty Conestogas, descendants of Indians who had lived peacefully since the 1690s on land donated by William Penn near Lancaster. Invoking the principle of right of conquest, the Paxton Boys claimed after the massacres that the Conestogas' land was rightfully theirs. They set out for Philadelphia, threatening to sack the city unless their grievances were met. A delegation led by Benjamin Franklin met them and what followed was a war of words, with Quakers doing battle against Anglican and Presbyterian champions of the Paxton Boys. The killers were never prosecuted and the Pennsylvania frontier descended into anarchy in the late 1760s, with Indians the principal victims. The new order heralded by the Conestoga massacres was consummated during the American Revolution with the destruction of the Iroquois confederacy. At the end of the Revolutionary War, the United States confiscated the lands of Britain's Indian allies, basing its claim on the principle of right of conquest.Based on extensive research in eighteenth-century primary sources, this engaging history offers an eye-opening look at how colonists--at first, the backwoods Paxton Boys but later the U.S. government--expropriated Native American lands, ending forever the dream of colonists and Indians living together in peace.

    With exclusive access to the RCA vaults, producer Ernst Jorgensen brings to intimate life every moment that Elvis spent in the studio--from the spontaneous joy of his early sessions to the intensely creative periods of his later career. At once the definitive recording session guide and a compellingly readable narrative, this is the ultimate companion to the singer and his songs.

    He digs into the war’s major events and reveals the unknown, bizarre, and often wildly amusing things the participants were doing while breaking away from Great Britain.For example, conventional wisdom says that “no taxation without representation” was an important reason for the revolution, but not in the way we’ve been told. Colonists paid the wages of common-court judges, who were reluctant to rule against the men who paid their salaries. Therefore, duties on molasses (the key ingredient in rum) were generally unenforced until the British cut the tariff in half. Strange but true, the spark that touched off the revolution was in fact a tax cut.During the French and Indian War and then again in the first year of the revolution, the British were accused of biological warfare, infecting blankets with smallpox and then concealing them in Indian camps. So feared was the disease that soldiers began to illegally inoculate themselves before widespread vaccination was finally ordered for the army. Washington himself was immune, thanks to a Caribbean trip taken as a young man when his brother Lawrence sought a cure for tuberculosis. Lawrence wasn’t cured, but George was infected with smallpox in Barbados. As a young man in a warm climate, he survived. As an older man in a northern winter, however, the story of the father of our country might have had a different ending.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    

    Laura Auricchio gives us a rich portrait of the man, fully revealed, a man driven by dreams of glory and felled by tragic, human weaknesses. In The Marquis, we come to understand the personal struggles, social quandaries, and idealistic visions that inspired an orphaned young man to cross an ocean and fight a war that was none of his concern; we see a guileless provincial whose unexpected inheritance allowed him to marry into the highest echelons of the French aristocracy, and become a self-consciously awkward presence at the palace of Versailles. Here is the young Lafayette, removed from the French army as a result of sweeping reforms, trapped in a gilded cage until American emissaries reached Paris seeking support for their revolution. In the American cause, Lafayette, whose only vision had been of martial glory, saw a way to reach his dreams, and seized it with gusto. Americans welcomed him with open arms, and he returned their affection fully. His American éclat was so brilliant and his enthusiasm so great that he quickly became the symbol of the Franco-American alliance that ultimately defeated Great Britain. We see how Lafayette’s reputation rose to great heights during the American Revolution but collapsed during the French; that when the Bastille fell on July 14, 1789,  Parisians hailed Lafayette as the French Washington and appointed him commander of their National Guard, hoping that he would be able to restore order to a city wracked by starvation and violence. As revolutionaries hurtled in radical directions and staunch monarchists dug in their heels, Lafayette lost control, remaining steadfast in his belief that the French monarchy needed to be reformed but not abolished, and doing everything in his power to prevent an American-style republic from taking root in his native land. Formerly seen as France’s heroic figure, Lafayette was now viewed as opportunistic, a dreamer, and a traitor to his nation--and today remains a murky figure in French memory.In America, Lafayette’s momentous departure from his homeland for the War of Independence has long been hailed as the start of an extraordinary career to be celebrated for generations. In France, it is often seen as just one of his many misbegotten undertakings. Yet no one has managed to offer a satisfactory answer to the crucial question of why: Why did Americans shower Lafayette with so much acclaim in his own time that he remains a hero today, being named an honorary U.S. citizen in 2002—becoming only the seventh person ever granted this distinction? And why, in contrast, does his memory continue to be denigrated in his own land?Auricchio, drawing on substantial new research conducted in libraries, archives, museums, and private homes in France and the United States, gives us history on a grand scale as she answers these crucial questions, revealing the man and his complex life, and challenging and exploring the complicated myths that have surrounded his name for more than two centuries.

    In this lively account, Robert Allison provides a cohesive synthesis of the military, diplomatic, political, social, and intellectual aspects of the Revolution, paying special attention to the Revolution's causes and consequences. The book recreates the tumultuous events of the 1760s and 1770s that led to revolution, such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, as well as the role the Sons of Liberty played in turning resistance into full-scale revolt. Allison explains how and why Americans changed their ideas of government and society so profoundly in these years and how the War for Independence was fought and won. He highlights the major battles and commanders on both sides--with a particular focus on George Washington and the extraordinary strategies he developed to defeat Britain's superior forces--as well as the impact of French military support on the American cause. In the final chapter, Allison explores the aftermath of the American Revolution: how the newly independent states created governments based on the principles for which they had fought, and how those principles challenged their own institutions, such as slavery, in the new republic. He considers as well the Revolution's legacy, the many ways its essential ideals influenced other struggles against oppressive power or colonial systems in France, Latin America, and Asia.Sharply written and highly readable, The American Revolution offers the perfect introduction to this seminal event in American history.

    Army as a two-tour helicopter pilot in Vietnam. It is a true-life story of a pilot who fought for freedom and often his very life. Vietnams Saga is also a story about the meaning of life. Standing back from his war experience, Stan reflects on his ever-present faith and how it carried him through this challenging period of his life. Originally written as a legacy to Stan Corvin’s family- something that will be passed down for many generations-Vietnam Saga is now an opportunity for you to share in the legacy and the personal recollections, memories, thoughts, fears and shed tears of a decorated and dedicated American military pilot. The book also contains numerous photos.

    Vividly evoking the confusion, horror and comradeship of war - from the killing fields of Normandy bocage, through house-to-house fighting in shattered Flemish towns, to the final Rhine crossing - Lion Rampant is a powerful, authentic and moving story, telling with extraordinary clarity how the author, his fellow officers and the men of his company lived through one of the most bitter campaigns in history.