Biographies & Non-Fiction

Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs

Kathleen Brown examines the origins of racism and slavery in British North America from the perspective of gender. Both a basic social relationship and a model for other social hierarchies, gender helped determine the construction of racial categories...

Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence

In his celebrated account of the origins of American unity, John Adams described July 1776 as the moment when thirteen clocks managed to strike at the same time. So how did these American colonies overcome long odds to create a durable union capable of...

The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America

Over the course of the eighteenth century, Anglo-Americans purchased an unprecedented number and array of goods. The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America investigates these diverse artifacts—from portraits and city views to...

Virginia 1619: Slavery and Freedom in the Making of English America

Virginia 1619 provides an opportunity to reflect on the origins of English colonialism around the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic world. As the essays here demonstrate, Anglo-Americans have been simultaneously experimenting with representative government...

Family, Slavery, and Love in the Early American Republic

One of the finest historians of her generation, Jan Ellen Lewis (1949-2018) transformed our understanding of the early U.S. Republic. Her groundbreaking essays defined the emerging fields of gender and emotions history and reframed traditional...

Fatal Revolutions: Natural History, West Indian Slavery, and the Routes of American Literature

Drawing on letters, illustrations, engravings, and neglected manuscripts, Christopher Iannini connects two dramatic transformations in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world--the emergence and growth of the Caribbean plantation system and the rise of...

The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution

When the Revolutionary War began, the odds of a united, continental effort to resist the British seemed nearly impossible. Few on either side of the Atlantic expected thirteen colonies to stick together in a war against their cultural cousins. In this...

Foul Means: The Formation of a Slave Society in Virginia, 1660-1740

Challenging the generally accepted belief that the introduction of racial slavery to America was an unplanned consequence of a scarce labor market, Anthony Parent, Jr., contends that during a brief period spanning the late seventeenth and early...

Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia

In this provocative reinterpretation of one of the best-known events in American history, Woody Holton shows that when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other elite Virginians joined their peers from other colonies in declaring independence from...

Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the United States

Who had the right to live within the newly united states of America? In the country's founding decades, federal and state politicians debated which categories of people could remain and which should be subject to removal. The result was a white...

Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840

In the first comprehensive history of the fraternity known to outsiders primarily for its secrecy and rituals, Steven Bullock traces Freemasonry through its first century in America. He follows the order from its origins in Britain and its introduction...

They Were Her Property

Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African American history, They Were Her Property makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show...

Founding Feuds by Paul Aron

Think partisanship has never been so bad? Think again. Founding Feuds by Paul Aron shows the founders of the United States of America not only debating but also smearing, screaming, spitting, and occasionally shooting at each other—their...

Restoring Williamsburg

From our fascinating and highly readable best-selling classic, Williamsburg Before and After to our revised and expanded edition, Restoring Williamsburg combines the history of a major restoration bringing the story up to present. Sheds new...

Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence

We commonly think of the American Revolution as simply the war for independence from British colonial rule. But, of course, that independence actually applied to only a portion of the American population—African Americans would still be bound in...

First and Always: A New Portrait of George Washington

George Washington may be the most famous American who ever lived, and certainly is one of the most admired. While surrounded by myths, it is no myth that the man who led Americans’ fight for independence and whose two terms in office largely...

Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington

In Realistic Visionary, renowned George Washington scholar Peter Henriques seeks to humanize the first president without diminishing him. Henriques’s Washington makes mistakes, is sensitive to criticism, and is slow to accept blame, but he is also...

Hero of Two Worlds

From the bestselling author of The Storm Before the Storm and host of the Revolutions podcast comes the thrilling story of the Marquis de Lafayette’s lifelong quest to defend the principles of liberty and equality. "Few in history can match the...

Travels With George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

Does George Washington still matter? In Travels With George, bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington's unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through all thirteen former colonies,...

America's Forgotten Colonial History

From the publisher: "This is what we all learned in school: Pilgrims on the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. They had a rough start, but ultimately made a go of it, made friends with the Indians, and celebrated with a big Thanksgiving dinner...

The Course of History: Ten Meals That Changed the World

Some of the most consequential decisions in history were decided at the dinner table, accompanied - and perhaps influenced - by copious amounts of food and drink. The Course of History: Ten Meals That Changed the World is a fascinating book that explores...

The Words That Made Us: America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840

Go on a literary journey with preeminent legal scholar Akhil Reed Amar! In his 800+ page book, The Words That Made Us: America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, Amar covers the history of the American Constitution's formative decades.  When...

First Principles

In First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks offers a revelatory book about the...

Craft: An American History

At the center of the United States' economic and social development, according to conventional wisdom, are industry and technology—while craftspeople and handmade objects are relegated to a bygone past. Renowned historian Glenn Adamson turns that...

A History of Tea

As the world's most popular beverage, tea has fascinated us, awakened us, motivated us, and calmed us for well over two thousand years. A History of Tea tells the compelling story of the rise of tea in Asia and its eventual spread to the West and beyond...

Inventing the American Flag

With gorgeous four-color reproductions of an amazing array of art from diverse cultures and eras, Inventing the American Flag explores the symbolism of the national flag and investigates why the founding fathers chose the images they did to represent the...

Bricks: Now and Then

“Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.” - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Buildings made of brick are found in very different epochs and cultures all over the world. Always astonishing, the qualities of...

Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership

Franklin and Washington: The Founding Partnership is the latest book from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson and is a masterful, first-of-its-kind dual biography of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, illuminating the enduring...

Mapping Virginia Book

Mapping Virginia: From the Age of Exploration to the Civil War by William C. Wooldridge is sure to become a treasured addition to your library. As one of the chief gateways to the earliest exploration and settlement of the North American continent,...

American Stories

American Stories by Paul Aron follows the evolution of our founding stories and myths and how they spread far and wide throughout our history. The story of the cherry tree, for example, tells us nothing about George Washington’s actual...

Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity

When hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and other disasters strike, we count our losses, search for causes, commiserate with victims, and initiate relief efforts. Amply illustrated and expansively researched, Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity...

Founding Mothers

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Cokie Roberts comes New York Times bestseller Founding Mothers, an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families–and...

A Brief Treatise on Tomb & Grave Stones of the Eighteenth Century

An introductory guide and study resource for understanding the process of Eighteenth Century Gravestone carving, as well as a primer on identifying carvers of the stones. Includes proper notes for academic study thereon, along with many pictures for...

An Army Doctor’s American Revolutionary War Journal, 1775-1783

At the age of 21, James Thacher (1754–1844) joined the newly formed American army as a surgeon's mate, eventually advancing to the role of surgeon for the Massachusetts 16th Regiment. In 1823, he published his Journal, reporting both wartime events...

The U.S. Constitution and Other Writings

The U.S. Constitution and Other Writings is part of the Leather-bound Classics series and is a collection of the crucial documents, speeches, and other writings that shaped the United States. In addition to the Constitution, readers can review the...

Hidden History of Civil War Williamsburg

Each year, thousands of visitors from around the country visit the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's re-created 18th-century capital of Virginia to learn about the past and walk where the Founding Fathers walked. The fact that the same ground was later...

Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck and A New History of America's Origin

In Marooned, Joseph Kelly reexamines the history of Jamestown and comes to a radically different and decidedly American interpretation of these first Virginians. In this gripping account of shipwrecks and mutiny in America's earliest settlements, Kelly...

The Journal of Major George Washington

In 1753, Virginia Governor Dinwiddie appointed 21-year-old Major George Washington to a delicate mission - deliver a letter to the local French commander demanding that he and his forces leave British Territory and bargain for support with the local...

Quest for a Cure

Erected in 1773, burned in 1885, and now reconstructed, the Public Hospital was the first public facility in colonial America built for the treatment of the mentally ill. This highly readable account of Quest for a Cure gives an overview of the attitudes...

I Am Murdered

George Wythe was Thomas Jefferson's mentor and friend, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court - and a victim of lethal poisoning. His murder and the trial of his nephew for the killing caused a sensation...

Rivers and Roads: Transportation in Early America

In an era when no corner of the globe has been left unexplored, and people commute hundreds of miles every day in cars, trains and buses, it's easy to lose track of how different life would be without these modes of transportation. Travel back to a time...

The American Flag: A Handbook of History & Etiquette

A perfect patriotic gift, this handsome guide to the American flag is a concise collection of the history and etiquette of the U.S. flag. The book, bound in hardcover in a distinctive blue leatherette with gold stamping, includes details of the laws...

Thomas Jefferson Art of Power

A No. 1 New York Times Bestseller, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power has been named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and more. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham once...

The Art and Soul of African American Interpretation

The Art and Soul of African American Interpretation is the first book in which African American interpreters themselves reflect on their profession. Six experienced interpreters discuss how they research historical figures and create characters, often...

Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence

The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed, and danger into the life of every American, and Carol Berkin shows us that women played a vital role throughout the struggle. Berkin takes us into the ordinary moments of...

Norfolk Naval Shipyard

Norfolk Naval Shipyard has a long history that predates the United States of America. Founded in 1767 as the Gosport Shipyard, it has been burned and rebuilt three times, once to prevent it from getting into the hands of the newly independent state of...

Yorktown, Virginia: A Brief History

Yorktown's history is often overshadowed by its pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. The site of the British surrender has held several victory commemorations over the past two hundred years. Yorktown also was a thriving colonial port and the site of...

Historic Trades

With more than 90 color photos, this charming hardcover book celebrates Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Trades in vivid detail. Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area is home to the largest, most diverse museum-operated trades program in the world. Here...