Biographies & Non-Fiction

The Williamsburg Bray School: A History Through Records, Reflections, and Rediscovery

Seven letters that trace the arc of the Williamsburg Bray School—from its founding in 1760 to its closing in 1774—are the foundation for a collection of essays that explores history and implications...

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...

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...

Williamsburg at War: Virginia's Colonial Capital in the Revolutionary War

When one thinks of places most associated with the American Revolution, Boston and Philadelphia naturally come to mind. Both cities witnessed crucial events, from the Boston Tea Party and British...

Creating Colonial Williamsburg: The Restoration of Virginia's Eighteenth-Century Capital

In Creating Colonial Williamsburg, Anders Greenspan examines the restoration and re-creation of the structures and gardens of Virginia’s colonial capital beginning in 1926. The restoration was...

Williamsburg: Images of America

Today, much of Williamsburg appears as it once was-the colonial capital of Virginia, where patriots forged many of the principles of American democracy. This historic city attracts a million visitors...

George Washington's Rules of Civility

This collectible edition of George Washington's Rules of Civility is a beautiful keepsake that combines Washington's 110 timeless rules of etiquette with his seminal first inaugural address as the...

The Declaration of Independence, Pocket Edition

This hardcover pocket-sized edition of The Declaration of Independence is perfect for students and travelers! The book contains the full text of the Declaration of Independence along with...

Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Pocket Edition

This hardcover pocket-sized edition of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the revolutionary pamphlet that helped light the fire of American Independence, is perfect for students and travelers! The complete...

Colonial Williamsburg Search for a Century DVD

Rare Find! This DVD is discontinued, and we only have a few copies left before they are gone forever. Add to or complete your Colonial Williamsburg DVD collection with Search for a Century! Please...

The United States Constitution - The Full Text With Supplementary Materials

The United States Constitution - The Full Text With Supplementary Materials, by Dover Publications, is an excellent resource for students and history enthusiasts alike. The basis of our nation's law...

What Is the Constitution?

What is the Constitution? is an illustrated book by Patricia Brennan Demuth for kids ages 8-12 that provides readers with the whole story–arguments and all–of how the United States Constitution came...

The Constitution of the United States of America, Pocket Edition

This pocket-sized edition of The United States Constitution is perfect for students and travelers! The complete text of the Constitution and all the amendments are included in the small book, easily...

It’s Hard to Tell When a Tradition Begins…A Vaillancourt Christmas

After nearly forty years of running Vaillancourt Folk Art, a company dedicated to crafting heirloom quality Christmas treasures, Gary Vaillancourt has a good sense of what tradition can do for a...

Marquis de Lafayette Returns Guide Book

Walk in the footsteps of the Marquis de Lafayette as he makes a final trip through the young United States! Against the backdrop of a tumultuous election, a beloved hero of the American Revolution...

The Pursuit of Happiness Book by Jeffrey Rosen

A New York Times bestseller and an "enriching…brilliant" (David W. Blight, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Frederick Douglass) examination of what "the pursuit of happiness" meant to our nation’s...

Dunmore's War: The Last Conflict of America's Colonial Era

Known to history as "Dunmore's War," the 1774 campaign against a Shawnee-led Indian confederacy in the Ohio Country marked the final time an American colonial militia took to the field in His...

Dunmore's New World: The Extraordinary Life of a Royal Governor in Revolutionary America

Dunmore's New World tells the stranger-than-fiction story of Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, whose long-neglected life boasts a measure of scandal and intrigue rare in the annals...

Virginia Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume 1

Virginia Women is the first of two volumes exploring the history of Virginia women through the lives of exemplary and remarkable individuals. This collection of seventeen essays, written by...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Witchcraft in Colonial Virginia

Witchcraft in Colonial Virginia by Carson Hudson is a fascinating book about eighteenth-century witchcraft beliefs and trials in Virginia based on actual facts in historical records and not Hollywood...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 lives of every American, and Carol Berkin shows us that women played a vital role throughout the...

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...