American Colonial & Revolutionary History Books

THE AMERICAN FLAG BOOKPLATES (Sample available)
art from a photo. Condition: NEW package of 10 bookplates made by pacaritambo books. The peel-off label stock is heavier than most bookplate materials and is matte and not glossy. We can also personalize the bookplates if you like - email us the name you want on the bookplate. They are as perfect as possible, and we feel the subject matter is much different than you can get anywhere else. 3.75" H x 3.75" W. Content: This bookplate is a version of the American Flag - with plenty of room for a name of even an inscription. Any questions or for a sample, click here to email us.
$ 3.59 + $ 2.75 first class shipping.

AFTER THE REVOLUTION: Profiles of Early American Culture
by Joseph J. Ellis. Charles Bird King 1830 cover illustrations. B&W photos & drawings illustrate. Condition: NEW c. 1981 W. W. Norton Trade Paperback, sixth printing. Odd binder's glue string top half spine. Interior perfect. Content: Through portraits of four figures—Charles Willson Peale, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, William Dunlap, and Noah Webster—Joseph Ellis provides a unique perspective on the role of culture in post-Revolutionary America, both its high expectations and its frustrations. Each life is fascinating in its own right, and each is used to brightly illuminate the historical context. [1 copy available]
$ 8.25 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

AN AMERICAN PLAGUE: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 [Newberry Honor Book]
by Jim Murphy. B&W era newspaper reports, art, drawings, city maps, and photos. Excellent documentation. Condition: NEW 2006 Scholastic trade paperback, 4th printing. Content: History, science, politics, and public health come together in this dramatic account of the disastrous yellow fever epidemic that hit the nation's capital more than 200 years ago. Drawing on firsthand accounts, medical and non-medical, Murphy re-creates the fear and panic in the infected city, the social conditions that caused the disease to spread, and the arguments about causes and cures. With archival prints, photos, contemporary newspaper facsimiles that include lists of the dead, and full, chatty source notes, he tells of those who fled and those who stayed--among them, the heroic group of free blacks who nursed the ill and were later vilified for their work. Murphy chronicles this frightening time with solid research and a flair for weaving facts into fascinating stories, beginning with the fever's emergence on August 3, when a young French sailor died in Richard Denny's boardinghouse on North Water Street. As church bells rang more and more often, it became horrifyingly clear that the de facto capital was being ravaged by an unknown killer. An afterword explains the yellow fever phenomenon, its causes, and contemporary outbreaks, and source notes are extensive and interesting. Grades 6 - 12. Questions welcome. [1 left]
$ 4.89 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

COLONISTS FOR SALE: The Story of Indentured Servants in America
by Clifford Lindsey Alderman. Condition: Good only, 1975 Macmillan hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. EX-library book with all markings and then some. The interior is actually quite clean & tight. Content: This book examines the origin, working conditions, and eventual fate of indentured servants in America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 1.79 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

A DELUSION OF SATAN: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials
by Frances Hill. Intro by Karen Armstrong. B&W maps and a B&W document and photo section. Condition: Gently pre-read to page 46 and abandoned, 1999 Da Capo Press Trade Papaerback, third printing. Edge wear to the front cover fore edge with light tanning to white cover borders. No tanning to the interior pages. Content: Almost everyone knows something about the infamous Salem witch trials, but few are privy to the chilling details that Hill, a British novelist and journalist turned scholar, reveals in her superb and boldly analytical study. Hill documents every grim particular of this travesty of justice and terrifying example of the power of suggestion, from the very first accusations to the last brutal executions. As Hill tells the all but unbelievable tale about how a group of girls accused innocent women from all walks of life of practicing witchcraft, thus instigating a year of mass hysteria and causing the death of 25 people, she emphasizes the harshness, sterility, and repressiveness of seventeenth-century New England Puritan life. It's no coincidence, Hill asserts, that Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam, and Elizabeth Hubbard began having their dramatic fits in the dead of winter and in the wake of serious political and economic conflicts. The mystery is why allegedly responsible adults eagerly embraced and ruthlessly acted on their wild claims. Hill's astute psychological insights offer cogent explanations for this moral breakdown, but no interpretation can diminish the horror. And Hill reminds us that "witch-hunts are still with us." Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 6.79 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

INEQUALITY IN EARLY AMERICA
edited by Carla Gardina Pestana & Sharon V. Salinger. B&W charts. Condition: NEW 1999 University Press of New England Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: Dedicated to the great Gary Nash, this book contains essays by 15 historians of early America who examine the concept and the reality of inequality in early American society, covering religion, material culture, slavery, and gender. The essays show how inequality was both resisted and defended at the time. They also honor the outstanding scholarship of Gary Nash in this field. It was Nash's book,"Red, White, and Black" that led to a major reassessment of Colonial American history. These essays are, in effect, the result of his insights into the nature and impact of inequality in Colonial and Revolutionary America. Contributors: Richard Dunn, Sylvia Frey, Thomas Ingersoll, Philip Morgan, Gary Nash, Mary Beth Norton, J. Richard Olivas, Neal Salisbury, Ronald Schultz, Billy G. Smith, Sterling Snickey, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Peter Wood, and the editors. Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 6.25 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

PATRIOTS: The Men Who Started the AmericanREvolution
by A. J. Langguth. B&W photos throughout. B&W maps, as well. Condition: UNREAD c. 1989 Touchstone large Trade Paperback (637 pages), first printing. Impressions on front cover near hinge. Content: Working with contemporary letters and public statements, Langguth, who heads the journalism department at the University of Southern California, produces a closely knit and continuously interesting drama of the American Revolution by following the principal and secondary actors, from Prime Minister George Grenville and his plan to raise revenues by a stamp tax in the colonies to General Washington's farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern. Figures whose names are familiar but whose deeds are vaguely known are brought into sharp focus. We know, for instance, that Benedict Arnold is our most infamous traitor, but not necessarily what drove him to do whatever it was he did, precisely. Washington definitely crossed the Delaware, but what did he do when he reached the other side? Read this rousing history and find out. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.39 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

UNDREAMED SHORES: England's Wasted Empire in America -- A Story of Rogues, Pirates, High-Flying Ambition and Plain Greed
by Michael Foss. B&W era illustrations & maps. Condition: NEW 1988 Phoenix Press (London) Trade Paperback reprint. Content: Unveils the true story of devious policy, misplaced idealism, high-flying ambition and greed. Features the visionary John Cabot, the incalculable Walter Raleigh, the rogue Thomas Stukeley, and the idealist Humphrey Gilbert among a cast of sailors, colonists and Indians. [1 copy available]
$ 3.95 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

VIRGINIA 1607 - 1776 (Voices from Colonial America series)
by Sandy Pobst with Kevin Roberts, Ph.D. Color & B&W era art works, maps, and woodcuts. Decorated end pages with the known (& supposed) North America at the time. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 2005 National Geo hardcover (pictorial boards) & DJ (in mylar jacket), no printing given. Problem: DJ shows edgewear top edge with very short "repaired" tear at spoine. Everything else perfect. Content: One of the largest and most prosperous of the original colonies, Virginia played a huge role in forming America. Here, an appealing mixture of maps, archival photographs and first-person accounts opens kids' eyes to life in colonial Virginia. They'll learn the latest theories about Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony and Pocahontas's rescue of John Smith. They'll learn about the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe, life on a Tidewater plantation, and the role George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and other native sons played in the birth of the nation and the emergence of Virginia as the 10th state in 1788. Middle-school students will encounter Colonial America through fresh eyes in this comprehensive series. Archival photographs, period maps, and lively, first-person accounts from explorers, Native Americans, missionaries, slaves and indentured servants, farmers, government officials, and more are seamlessly woven together to create a vibrant and accurate portrait of life in 18 European colonies—not just British but French and Spanish, too. The book begins "the hstory of the United States starts with Virginia." Point taken, but those of us in the Southwest would not agree. Very nice book. Young Adults and adults as well. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 10.59 + $ 3.29 media shipping.