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America Bewitched is the first major history of witchcraft in America - from the Salem witch trials of 1692 to the present day. The infamous Salem trials are etched into the consciousness of modern America, the human toll a reminder of the dangers of intolerance and persecution. The refrain 'Remember Salem!' was invoked frequently over the ensuing centuries. As time passed, the trials became a milepost measuring the distance America had progressed from its colonial past, its victims now the righteous and their persecutors the shamed.

Signing Their Rights Away chronicles a moment in American history when our elected officials knew how to compromise - and put aside personal gain for the greater good of the nation. These men were just as quirky and flawed as the elected officials we have today: Hugh Williamson believed in aliens, Robert Morris went to prison, Jonathan Dayton stole $18,000 from Congress, and Thomas Mifflin was ruined by alcohol. Yet somehow these imperfect men managed to craft the world’s most perfect Constitution.

This searing story of slavery and freedom in the Chesapeake reveals the pivot in the nation’s path between the founding and civil war. Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom’s swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire. Drawn from new sources, Alan Taylor's riveting narrative re-creates the events that inspired black Virginians, haunted slaveholders, and set the nation on a new and dangerous course.

When the United States government passed the Bill of Rights in 1791, its uncompromising protection of speech and of the press were unlike anything the world had ever seen before. But by 1798, the once-dazzling young republic of the United States was on the verge of collapse. Suddenly, the First Amendment, which protected harsh commentary of the weak government, no longer seemed as practical. So that July, President John Adams and the Federalists in control of Congress passed an extreme piece of legislation that made criticism of the government and its leaders a crime.

In this third volume of Michael Logusz's epic study of the Wilderness War of 1777, a sizable British military force, augmented with German and loyalist soldiers, attacks the Northern Army's southern front in the fall of 1777 in hopes of assisting a much larger British Army that is threatened to the north of New York City in the wilderness region of Saratoga.

In 1791, General Arthur St. Clair led the United States Army in a campaign to destroy a complex of Indian villages at the Miami River in northwestern Ohio. Almost within reach of their objective, St. Clair's 1,400 men were attacked by about 1,000 Indians. The U.S. force was decimated, suffering nearly a thousand casualties in killed and wounded, while Indian casualties numbered only a few dozen. As renowned Native American historian Colin Calloway demonstrates here, St. Clair's Defeat - as it came to be known - was hugely important for its time.

Everyone knows the story of the Boston Tea Party - in which colonists stormed three British ships and dumped 92,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor. But do you know the history of the Philadelphia Tea Party (December 1773)? How about the York, Maine, Tea Party (September 1774) or the Wilmington, North Carolina, Tea Party (March 1775)?

The long-awaited biography of the frontier Founding Father whose heroic actions and neglected writings inspired an entire generation, from Paine to Madison. On May 10, 1775, in the storm-tossed hours after midnight, Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary firebrand, was poised for attack. With only two boatloads of his scraggly band of Vermont volunteers having made it across the wind-whipped waters of Lake Champlain, he was waiting for the rest of his Green Mountain boys to arrive....

History tends to cast the early years of America in a glow of camaraderie when there were, in fact, many conflicts between the Founding Fathers - none more important than the one between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Their disagreement centered on the highest, most original public office created by the Constitutional Convention: the presidency. It also involved the nation's foreign policy, the role of merchants and farmers in a republic, and the durability of the union.

It was an age of fascinating leaders and difficult choices, of grand ideas eloquently expressed and of epic conflicts bitterly fought. Now comes a brilliant portrait of the American Revolution, one that is compelling in its prose, fascinating in its details, and provocative in its fresh interpretations.

Like many historical events, the American Revolution is sometimes overlooked, ignored, or minimized by historians due to being shrouded in romantic myth and stubborn stereotypes. Here historian Phillip Thomas Tucker provides an in-depth look at the events of the Battle of Trenton, weeding out fiction and legend and presenting new insights and analysis.

During the American Revolution and the border conflicts that followed, Simon Girty's name struck terror into the hearts of U.S. settlers in the Ohio Valley and the territory of Kentucky. Girty (1741-1818) had lived with the Natives most of his life. Scorned by his fellow white frontiersmen as an "Indian lover," Girty became an Indian agent for the British. He accompanied Native raids against Americans, spied deep into enemy territory, and was influential in convincing the tribes to fight for the British.

The tragic history of an African-American soldier, a Polish revolutionary, and a flawed statesman who betrayed a friend and failed a nation. Friends of Liberty tells the remarkable story of three men whose lives were braided together by issues of liberty and race that fueled revolutions across two continents.

The rousing story of Lafayette - “adopted son” of George Washington - and his vital role in the American Revolution. In this long-overdue history of Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette, acclaimed French author Gonzague Saint Bris recounts Lafayette’s invaluable contributions to the American War of Independence and, later, the French Revolution of 1789.

>For the People offers a new interpretation of populist political movements from the Revolution to the eve of the Civil War and roots them in the disconnect between the theory of rule by the people and the reality of rule by elected representatives. Ron Formisano seeks to rescue populist movements from the distortions of contemporary opponents as well as the misunderstandings of later historians.From the Anti-Federalists to the Know-Nothings, Formisano traces the movements chronologically, contextualizing them and demonstrating the progression of ideas and movements.

In The Story of America, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore investigates American origin stories - from John Smith's account of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural address - to show how American democracy is bound up with the history of print. Over the centuries, Americans have read and written their way into a political culture of ink and type. Part civics primer, part cultural history, The Story of America excavates the origins of everything from the paper ballot and the Constitution to the I.O.U. and the dictionary.

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most influential documents in modern history - the inspiration for what would become the most powerful democracy in the world. Indeed, at every stage of American history, the Declaration has been a touchstone for evaluating the legitimacy of legal, social, and political practices. Not only have civil rights activists drawn inspiration from its proclamation of inalienable rights, but individuals decrying a wide variety of governmental abuses have turned for support to the document's enumeration of British tyranny.

Why the American Revolution, of all the great revolutions, was the only enduring success. Through the Founders' own voices - and in the homes they designed and built to embody the ideal of domestic happiness they fought to achieve - we come to understand why the American Revolution, of all great revolutions, was the only enduring success. The Founders were vivid, energetic men, with sophisticated worldviews, and this magnificent reckoning of their successes draws liberally from their own eloquent writings on their actions and well-considered intentions.

Americans have debated the Constitution since the day it was signed, but rarely in its 223-year history have so many disagreed so fiercely about so much. Everywhere there seems to be debate about the Constitution's meaning and message. The Tea Party, with its almost fanatical focus on the founding document, contends that its primary purpose is to restrain the federal government-but does it really say that?

Before the Revolutionary War, America was a nation divided by different faiths. But when the war for independence sparked in 1776, colonists united under the banner of religious freedom. Evangelical frontiersmen and Deist intellectuals set aside their differences to defend a belief they shared, the right to worship freely. Inspiring an unlikely but powerful alliance, it was the idea of religious liberty that brought the colonists together in the battle against British tyranny.

The Great Decision tells the riveting story of Marshall and of the landmark court case, Marbury v. Madison, through which he empowered the Supreme Court and transformed the idea of the separation of powers into a working blueprint for our modern state.

Felipe VI de Borbon, king of Spain, asked the author to create this audiobook in May 2010. This audiobook details the May 1776 agreement between Spain and France to support the American colonists in their battle for independence from Britain. In addition to the battles in North America, it points to the fact that our American Revolutionary War was only a small part in a greater world war among England, Spain, and France.

Many Americans labor under the misconception that the nation’s colonial and national heritage was almost wholly accomplished by an English migration, and the notion of early American diversity ends at an acknowledgment of the slave trade conducted between Southern buyers, Northern shippers, the African continent, and the Caribbean region. However, early America witnessed the development of New York by the Dutch, the southernmost regions by Spain, and what would become eastern Canada by the French after lengthy battles with Britain.

Though the Shawnee chief Tecumseh attempted to form a confederacy of tribes to stem the tide of white settlement in the Old Northwest, in November of 1811, the Americans marched to his village at the mouth of Tippecanoe Creek. The ensuing battle ended all hope of an Indian federation and had far-reaching effects on American and British relations. The British, blamed for providing the Indians with arms, drew the ire of hawks in Congress, who clamored ever more loudly for a war to end England’s power in North America.

A young officer in the Continental Army from Connecticut, young Nathan Hale was asked by Washington to go behind British lines on Long Island and bring back information on what the British were up to there. Unfortunately, Hale was quickly identified by Loyalists, found with incriminating papers on his body, and executed. Nathan Hale and the Culper Ring: The History of the Continental Army’s Most Famous Spy and Spy Ring during the American Revolution profiles the life of the young spy and the spy ring Washington organized after his execution.

Agrippa Hull: The Life and Legacy of the Revolutionary War’s Most Famous Black Soldier profiles one of the Revolution’s most unique participants.

This is the second in a series of audiobooks about Spain's assistance to the US during the American Revolutionary War.

The American Revolution conjures a series of iconographic images of defiant Patriots fighting against British Redcoats for freedom and democracy, while a unified citizenry rallies behind them and the American cause. But the lived experience of the Revolution was a more complex matter, filled with uncertainty, fear, and discord. In The American Revolution Reborn, editors Patrick Spero and Michael Zuckerman compile essays from a new generation of multidisciplinary scholars that render the American Revolution as a time of intense ambiguity and frightening contingency.

The drama of the life of the second president of the United States has been stirringly chronicled both in print and on television. Yet, the life of John Adams is so rich in history, emotion, power, and tragedy that no medium can entirely contain its essence. Hearing the story of his life is to be introduced to a nation, new and untried, that would rise to prominence in no small part due to his legacy of leadership.

By 1787, it became evident that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate for the new nation. With these problems hampering the national government under the Articles of Confederation and the threat of default on the nation's massive war debt looming, plans began being made to fix the problems of the Articles of Confederation. Thus, that summer, a Constitutional convention was called, and each state sent delegates to Philadelphia. Among the delegates were prominent patriots and former members of the Continental Congress, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

While the majority of scholarship on early Washington focuses on its political and physical development, in Incidental Architect Gordon S. Brown describes the intellectual and social scene of the late 1700s through the lives of a prominent couple whose cultural aspirations served as both model and mirror for the city’s own.

World domination is a vision most kings, queens, and emperors can only dream of. The only one to ever come close to this impossible level of prestige is none other than the legendary British Empire. Today, the British Army is one of the most powerful fighting forces in the world. Naturally, the history and traditions behind this army are also impressive. Its soldiers once created and defended a global empire, and during the Second World War, it was one of the leading nations standing against the brutal Axis forces, leading the way in the greatest seaborne invasion in military history.

In the spring of 1789, within weeks of the establishment of the new federal government based on the US Constitution, the Senate and House of Representatives fell into dispute regarding how to address the president. Congress, the press, and individuals debated more than 30 titles, many of which had royal associations and some of which were clearly monarchical. For Fear of an Elective King is Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon's rich account of the title controversy and its meanings.

In 1607, three small ships - the Discovery, Godspeed, and Susan Constant - arrived on the shores of the eastern North American coast and established the first successful British settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. For two centuries, colonists faced the challenges of life in a new world - weather, Native Indian attacks, starvation, and disease - to establish the strongest economy in the American colonies.

For almost a century after the U.S. Constitution went into effect, few Americans seem to have questioned the legitimacy of the Revolution. Since the Progressive generation of historians began the work of serious criticism and revision, however, students of American life have largely learned to live with a more complicated understanding of the revolutionary legacy. Smith's treatment of the era charts space for libertarians to both criticize and revere the American heritage.

Phillis Wheatley has always been a difficult figure for people to wrap their minds around. She fits no easy stereotypes that historians or contemporaries liked to use to classify their subjects. Her "career" has always escaped definition. In the 18th century, enslaved people were not supposed to have been educated, certainly not to the level that Wheatley was. In a time and place where slaves were rarely taught to read, they were obviously not expected to write better poetry than the vast majority of their peers.

Benedict Arnold: a name that has become synonymous with betrayal. However, this wasn't always the case. At one time he was General (and future first president) George Washington's trusted advisor in the struggle against the British. What caused this turncoat to turn his revolutionary ambitions inside out to match the crimson of the British? What brought on one of the most famous treacheries in history?

Yorktown was a former tobacco trading post now in decline, not much bigger than a large village. But Yorktown was tucked away on the northern edge of the York peninsula in rural Virginia, and in 1781 it became the site of a brief siege between two small armies, fought with all the decorum and formality of 18th century European warfare. About 5,000 British and Germans faced perhaps 18,000 Americans and French. After only three weeks the smaller garrison surrendered, tired and low on ammunition.

The United States is the land of opportunity, and this was no truer than during the late-Colonial phase in North America. The men and women who came to the 13 colonies worked for everything they had and eventually broke away from the British when the colonists grew unhappy with the governance. Without the "Founding Fathers," this would not have been possible; the men who declared independence, ran the war effort, and created the government were exceptional individuals.

For all of his accomplishments, Jefferson's reputation and legacy are still inextricably intertwined with the divisive issues of his own day. As the slaveholder who wrote that all men are created equal, and who had a relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, Jefferson's life and career are still sometimes fiercely debated today. History in 30: The Life of Thomas Jefferson provides a quick but comprehensive look at the life of the famous Founding Father.

What is the American Dream? Depending upon which period a person is referring to, the American Dream can shift somewhat with the changing tides of history. During the Colonial Period of the country, the United States was a bustling set of colonies, promising a second chance to all people who dared travel to her shores. The men and women who founded the United States wanted freedom from their past lives and saw the 13 colonies as their way to start over.