This is the first comprehensive reference work on America's Independence Day. Bringing attention to persons, places, and events of historical significance, the book focuses on the Fourth of July as it has been commemorated over the span of more than two centuries, starting with the first celebrations: public readings of the Declaration of Independence that occurred within days of its signing. Biographical sketches feature presidents (and how each celebrated the Fourth) and other politicians, famous soldiers, educators, engineers, scientists, athletes, musicians, and literary figures. Other topics include parks, monuments and statues dedicated on the Fourth; famous speeches and the personalities behind their stories; and general subjects of interest including education, abolition, temperance, African Americans, Native Americans, wars, transportation and holiday catastrophes.

Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation

In Founding Mothers, Cokie Roberts paid homage to the heroic women whose patriotism and sacrifice helped create a new nation. Now the number one New York Times bestselling author and renowned political commentator—praised in USA Today as a "custodian of time-honored values"—continues the story of early America's influential women with Ladies of Liberty.In her "delightfully intimate and confiding" style (Publishers Weekly), Roberts presents a colorful blend of biographical portraits and behind-the-scenes vignettes chronicling women's public roles and private responsibilities.

Recounted with the insight and humor of an expert storyteller and drawing on personal correspondence, private journals, and other primary sources—many of them previously unpublished—Roberts brings to life the extraordinary accomplishments of women who laid the groundwork for a better society. Almost every quotation here is written by a woman, to a

Esteemed historian David McCullough covers the military side of the momentous year of 1776 with characteristic insight and a gripping narrative, adding new scholarship and a fresh perspective to the beginning of the American Revolution. It was a turbulent and confusing time. As British and American politicians struggled to reach a compromise, events on the ground escalated until war was inevitable. McCullough writes vividly about the dismal conditions that troops on both sides had to endure, including an unusually harsh winter, and the role that luck and the whims of the weather played in helping the colonial forces hold off the world's greatest army. He also effectively explores the importance of motivation and troop morale--a tie was as good as a win to the Americans, while anything short of overwhelming victory was disheartening to the British, who expected a swift end to the war.

A stunning literary and historical achievement, the three volumes of Shelby Foote’s THE CIVIL WAR vividly bring to life the four years of torment and strife that altered American life forever. Presented in a handsome boxed set, these three beautifully bound hardcovers are an essential addition to every American history collection. . . Taking the reader from the drama of Jefferson Davis’s resignation from the United States Senate and Abraham Lincoln’s arrival in the nation’s capital to Davis’s final flight and capture and Lincoln’s tragic death, Foote covers his subject with astonishing depth and scope. Every battle, every general, and every statesman has its place in this monumental narrative, told in lively prose that captures the sights, smells, and sounds of the conflict. Never before have the great battles and personalities of the Civil War been so excitingly presented, and never before has the story been told so completely.