250TH ANNIVERSARY/ IMPORTANT GOOD READS

Page through gordonsgoodreads.com and find numerous titles relevant to the founding of America including books on the Revolutionary War, the founding fathers and the Constitutional Conventions. There are three titles among many others that I have found most enlightening.

Two of these titles highlight the contributions of individuals whose participation have in some quarters been more obscure. John Hancock is of course contemporarily most famous for his signature! However, John Hancock by historian Willard Randall reveals the enormous contributions of this founding father leading up to the Revolution, during the war and his participation in the great debate creating the Constitution. It is an eye-opening read. Samuel Adams by historian Stacy Schiff is another revealing biography. in which she places this Adams ( second cousin of John Adams) in his rightful place in history. Separation from the British Empire by a united American Colonies may never have happened without the efforts of Samuel Adams, the first of the pamphleteers! A firebrand indeed.

In my view, Rick Atkins ranks alongside Ken Burns in depth understanding of America’s march toward independence. Two books by Atkins, The British are Coming, and Fate of The Day are first rate historical works. A third volume of the trilogy is due later this year.

There are many other titles worthy of your time, many of which are reviewed at gordonsgoodreads.com including Joseph Ellis’ new volume The GREAT CONTRADICTION, The TRAGIC SIDE of the AMERICAN FOUNDING.

Eye opening! Search gordonsgoodreads.com for more on this subject.

THE REVOLUTIONARY-SAMUEL ADAMS

A fabulous scholarly work by Pulitzer Prize Author Stacy Schiff. At last Samuel Adams is catapulted into his proper and deserved Revolutionary Role! Step aside Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere and make way for the the person who with brilliance of action and pen united the Colonies and made them ready for the Declaration of Independence.

“Why would a people living in the finest climate under the mildest government blessed with land and religious liberty, protected by the greatest power on earth, viscously defy a parent state that had “nursed their tender years”? Samuel Adams blamed that “ancient republican spirit” which the first settlers had planted and which had flourished in the New England soil. ” Samuel Adams had at his disposal a single weapon: the word : liberty.”

When I finished reading The Revolutionary Samuel Adams Broadway’s Hamilton flashed in my mind. Lin Manuel Miranda might find an equal or better subject in Samuel Adams.