RW250 Roundtable
Book Group

We’ve started a group to discuss books relating to the Revolutionary War. Our first selection was Gordon S. Wood’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Radicalism of the American Revolution, published in 1991 and still considered a classic. Other selections have included:

  • Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick

  • 1774: The Long Year of Revolution by Mary Beth Norton

  • Revolutionary Roads: Searching for the War That Made America Independent...and All the Places It Could Have Gone Terribly Wrong by Bob Thompson.

Our January 2024 selection is The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson.

  • The discussion will take place on Sunday, January 21 at 4 p.m. on Zoom.

  • To register click here.

The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University is once again joining RW250 as a cosponsor. Dr. Michael Crowder, ITPS Public Historian, will moderate the discussion.
 
The first book in the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s Revolution Trilogy recounts the first twenty-one months of America’s violent war for independence. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775, to the Battle of White Plains in the fall of 1776 and to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force. It is a gripping saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery; Nathanael Greene, the blue-eyed bumpkin who becomes a brilliant battle captain; Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man who proves to be the wiliest of diplomats; George Washington, the commander in chief who learns the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost. The story is also told from the British perspective, making the mortal conflict between the redcoats and the rebels all the more compelling. Full of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering.
 
Get your copy from a local library or bookseller and plan to join us on January 21.

Below is a recording from our YouTube channel of the book group discussion on Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick, moderated by Dr. Michael Crowder. The discussion took place on January 30, 2022.