What They Didn't Teach You About the American Revolution [Paperback]

“Zeroes in on the interesting, irreverent, long-ignored tidbits that shape behavior in all conflicts and important periods of history.”—The Denver Post

What made the founding fathers so great (or were they?). And don’t forget the founding mothers. We have intrigue and skullduggery with spies from Nathan Hale to Benedict Arnold, with enlightening stops on the distaff side of espionage for Patience Wright (no relation to our esteemed author), Lydia Darragh, and Ann Bates.
 
“[Mike] Wright uncovers the gamut of the revolutionary era with a highly readable, breezy narrative style, and some of his speculations eloquently illustrate the ironies always present in grand historical movements. . . . This work will inform, amuse, and provide an interesting perspective on the Revolution.”—BooklistIntroduction
 
What is it that so fascinates us about the American Revolution? It is a seemingly simple question but one without a simple answer. The Revolution is (1) a glorious period, (2) a glamorous period, and (3) a period that changed our lives, no matter that we weren’t around at the time and may not recognize that our lives were changed.
 
Glorious? Maybe, maybe not. The Revolution was a fraternal and civil war that may have pitted at the most one third of us (those who wanted the colonies to separate from Britain) against another third (those who wanted to remain with Britain), with the rest (the final third) not caring one way or the other. For all, lives were disrupted, government was altered beyond imagination, and homes and existence were, at the least, threatened.
 
Glamorous? The eighteenth century saw people die of diseases that today can be cured with less than a dollar&lÇ