A Republic of Scoundrels

A Republic of Scoundrels PDF Author: David Head
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1639364080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
The Founding Fathers are often revered as American saints; here are the stories of those Founders who were schemers and scoundrels, vying for their own interests ahead of the nation’s. We now have a clear-eyed understanding of Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton; even so, they are often considered American saints, revered for their wisdom and self-sacrificing service to the nation. However, within the Founding Generation lurked many unscrupulous figures—men who violated the era’s expectation of public virtue and advanced their own interests at the expense of others. They were turncoats and traitors, opportunists and con artists, spies, and foreign intriguers. Some of their names are well known: Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. Others are less notorious now but were no less threatening. There was Charles Lee, the Continental Army general who offered to tell the British how to defeat the Americans, and James Wilkinson, who served fifteen years as a commanding general in the US Army, despite rumors that he spied for Spain and conspired with traitors. The early years of the republic were full of self-interested individuals, sometimes succeeding in their plots, sometimes failing, but always shaping the young nation. A Republic of Scoundrels seeks to re-examine the Founding Generation and replace the hagiography of the Founding Fathers with something more realistic: a picture that embraces the many facets of our nation’s origins.

A Republic of Scoundrels

A Republic of Scoundrels PDF Author: David Head
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1639364080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Founding Fathers are often revered as American saints; here are the stories of those Founders who were schemers and scoundrels, vying for their own interests ahead of the nation’s. We now have a clear-eyed understanding of Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton; even so, they are often considered American saints, revered for their wisdom and self-sacrificing service to the nation. However, within the Founding Generation lurked many unscrupulous figures—men who violated the era’s expectation of public virtue and advanced their own interests at the expense of others. They were turncoats and traitors, opportunists and con artists, spies, and foreign intriguers. Some of their names are well known: Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. Others are less notorious now but were no less threatening. There was Charles Lee, the Continental Army general who offered to tell the British how to defeat the Americans, and James Wilkinson, who served fifteen years as a commanding general in the US Army, despite rumors that he spied for Spain and conspired with traitors. The early years of the republic were full of self-interested individuals, sometimes succeeding in their plots, sometimes failing, but always shaping the young nation. A Republic of Scoundrels seeks to re-examine the Founding Generation and replace the hagiography of the Founding Fathers with something more realistic: a picture that embraces the many facets of our nation’s origins.

Captives of Liberty

Captives of Liberty PDF Author: T. Cole Jones
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812296559
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Contrary to popular belief, the American Revolutionary War was not a limited and restrained struggle for political self-determination. From the onset of hostilities, British authorities viewed their American foes as traitors to be punished, and British abuse of American prisoners, both tacitly condoned and at times officially sanctioned, proliferated. Meanwhile, more than seventeen thousand British and allied soldiers fell into American hands during the Revolution. For a fledgling nation that could barely afford to keep an army in the field, the issue of how to manage prisoners of war was daunting. Captives of Liberty examines how America's founding generation grappled with the problems posed by prisoners of war, and how this influenced the wider social and political legacies of the Revolution. When the struggle began, according to T. Cole Jones, revolutionary leadership strove to conduct the war according to the prevailing European customs of military conduct, which emphasized restricting violence to the battlefield and treating prisoners humanely. However, this vision of restrained war did not last long. As the British denied customary protections to their American captives, the revolutionary leadership wasted no time in capitalizing on the prisoners' ordeals for propagandistic purposes. Enraged, ordinary Americans began to demand vengeance, and they viewed British soldiers and their German and Native American auxiliaries as appropriate targets. This cycle of violence spiraled out of control, transforming the struggle for colonial independence into a revolutionary war. In illuminating this history, Jones contends that the violence of the Revolutionary War had a profound impact on the character and consequences of the American Revolution. Captives of Liberty not only provides the first comprehensive analysis of revolutionary American treatment of enemy prisoners but also reveals the relationship between America's political revolution and the war waged to secure it.

The Captive's Quest for Freedom

The Captive's Quest for Freedom PDF Author: R. J. M. Blackett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108314104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
This magisterial study, ten years in the making by one of the field's most distinguished historians, will be the first to explore the impact fugitive slaves had on the politics of the critical decade leading up to the Civil War. Through the close reading of diverse sources ranging from government documents to personal accounts, Richard J. M. Blackett traces the decisions of slaves to escape, the actions of those who assisted them, the many ways black communities responded to the capture of fugitive slaves, and how local laws either buttressed or undermined enforcement of the federal law. Every effort to enforce the law in northern communities produced levels of subversion that generated national debate so much so that, on the eve of secession, many in the South, looking back on the decade, could argue that the law had been effectively subverted by those individuals and states who assisted fleeing slaves.

The Captive Missionary

The Captive Missionary PDF Author: Henry A... Stern
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description


Captives and Corsairs

Captives and Corsairs PDF Author: Gillian Weiss
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804777845
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
Captives and Corsairs uncovers a forgotten story in the history of relations between the West and Islam: three centuries of Muslim corsair raids on French ships and shores and the resulting captivity of tens of thousands of French subjects and citizens in North Africa. Through an analysis of archival materials, writings, and images produced by contemporaries, the book fundamentally revises our picture of France's emergence as a nation and a colonial power, presenting the Mediterranean as an essential vantage point for studying the rise of France. It reveals how efforts to liberate slaves from North Africa shaped France's perceptions of the Muslim world and of their own "Frenchness". From around 1550 to 1830, freeing these captives evolved from an expression of Christian charity to a method of state building and, eventually, to a rationale for imperial expansion. Captives and Corsairs thus advances new arguments about the fluid nature of slavery and firmly links captive redemption to state formation—and in turn to the still vital ideology of liberatory conquest.

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays PDF Author: Thomas Carlyle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 604

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Book Description


Critical and Miscellaneous Essays

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays PDF Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3385262429
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 574

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Book Description
Reprint of the original, first published in 1845.

The Works of Thomas Carlyle

The Works of Thomas Carlyle PDF Author: Thomas Carlyle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English essays
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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Critical and miscellaneous essays

Critical and miscellaneous essays PDF Author: Thomas Carlyle
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3382135442
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 574

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Book Description
Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

The Kitchen Witch

The Kitchen Witch PDF Author: Annette Blair
Publisher: Starlighter Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Is she a good witch or a bad witch? With a flip of her long silky hair, a flash of her topaz eyes and the shake of a stick, rumored witch Melody Seabright has cast a spell on single dad Logan Kilgarven. What else can explain what’s happening to him? Logan, a television producer can’t seem to concentrate on anything since he met his enchanting new downstairs neighbor... Logan hopes she is bad, very bad. When Logan agrees to help Melody find a job at his TV station, he never expects the culinary-challenged siren to land her own cooking show. Her charisma keeps things bubbling on the set, and behind the scenes, things are starting to steam up between them. Logan knows he can’t resist her charms—but is there more to their attraction than is apparent on the surface? If only he had a crystal ball to show him...