America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson This is my favorite book on the history of the founding of America. It gives the context of where the founders were coming from morally and what writings and experiences influenced them.  Some of the influences came from the writings of Francis Bacon, Issac Newton, and John Locke, among others. They were in uncharted waters, starting a country that, for the first time in human history, recognized individual rights, and that your life belongs to you rather than to the government. The founding of America was called an experiment, and …

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1776 by David McCullough After reading this book I realized that we became America only by the skin of our teeth, and by the integrity and perseverance of George Washington. Luck of the weather and bad decisions by the British were important factors too, but it was Washington who was the driver. From Amazon … America’s beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of the year of our nation’s birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a war against her rebellious colonial subjects and that placed America’s …

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