In 1664, England decided to invade the Dutch-controlled city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, had dreams of empire, and their archrivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, the military officer who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he encountered Peter Stuyvesant, New Netherland's canny director general.

Bristling with vibrant characters, Taking Manhattan reveals the founding of New York to be an invention, the result of creative negotiations that would blend the multiethnic, capitalistic society of New Amsterdam with the power of the rising English empire. But the birth of what might be termed the first modern city is also a story of the brutal dispossession of Native Americans and of the roots of American slavery. The book draws from newly translated materials and illuminates neglected histories--of religious refugees, Indigenous tribes, and free and enslaved Africans.

Taking Manhattan tells the riveting story of the birth of New York City as a center of capitalism and pluralism, a foundation from which America would rise. It also shows how the paradox of New York's origins--boundless opportunity coupled with subjugation and displacement--reflects America's promise and failure to this day. Russell Shorto, whose work has been described as astonishing (New York Times) and literary alchemy (Chicago Tribune), has once again mined archival sources to offer a vibrant tale and a fresh and trenchant argument about American beginnings.

Timed for the 250th anniversary of one of America's most famous founding events: Paul Revere's heroic ride, newly told with fresh research into little-known aspects of the story Americans have heard since childhood but hardly understood

On April 18, 1775, a Boston-based silversmith, engraver, and anti-British political operative named Paul Revere set out on a borrowed horse to fulfill a dangerous but crucial mission: to alert American colonists of advancing British troops, which would seek to crush their nascent revolt.

Revere was not the only rider that night, and indeed, he had completed at least 18 previous rides across New England and other colonies, disseminating intelligence about British movements. But this ride was like no other, and its consequences in the months and years to come--as the American Revolution morphed from isolated skirmishes to a full-fledged war--became one of our founding legends.

In The Ride, Kostya Kennedy presents a dramatic new narrative of the events of April 18 and 19, 1775, informed by fresh primary and secondary source research into archives, family letters and diaries, contemporary accounts, and more. Kennedy reveals Revere's ride to be more complex than it is usually portrayed--a loosely coordinated series of rides by numerous men, near-disaster, capture by British forces, and finally success. While Revere was central to the ride and its plotting, Kennedy reveals the other men (and, perhaps, a woman with information about the movement of British forces) who helped to set in motion the events that would lead to America's independence.

Thrillingly written in a dramatic, unstoppable narrative, The Ride re-tells an essential American story for a new generation of readers.

From Joyce Chaplin's engaging, wide-ranging pages a fresh Franklin emerges. --Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary

[Chaplin's] expansive claims for the Franklin stove's importance click into place. --Dan Piepenbring, Harper's

A fascinating, innovative, inventive look at a fascinating, innovative man and his inventions. --Charles C. Mann, bestselling author of The Wizard and the Prophet and 1491

The surprising story of Benjamin Franklin's most famous invention--and a new take on the Founding Father we thought we knew.

The biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin's lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era's most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. It was more than just a material object, however--it was also a hypothesis. Franklin was proposing that, armed with science, he could invent his way out of a climate crisis: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters sometimes brought life to a standstill. He believed that his stove could provide snug indoor comfort despite another, related crisis: a shortage of wood caused by widespread deforestation. And he conceived of his invention as equal parts appliance and scientific instrument--a device that, by modifying how heat and air moved through indoor spaces, might reveal the workings of the atmosphere outside and explain why it seemed to be changing. With his stove, Franklin became America's first climate scientist.

Joyce E. Chaplin's The Franklin Stove is the story of this singular invention, and a revelatory new look at the Founding Father we thought we knew. We follow Franklin as he promotes his stove in Britain and France, while corresponding with the various experimenters who discovered the key gases in Earth's atmosphere, invented steam engines, and tried to clean up sooty urban air. During his travels back and forth across the Atlantic, we witness him taking measurements of the gulf stream and observing the cooling effect of volcanic ash from Iceland. And back in Philadelphia, we watch him hawk his invention while sparring with proponents of the popular theory that clearcutting forests would lead to warmer winters by reducing the amount of shade cover on the surface of the Earth. As the story of the Franklin stove shows, it's not so easy to engineer our way out of a climate crisis; with this book, Chaplin reveals how that challenge is as old as the United States itself.

It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death.

The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic.

As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, The Witches is Stacy Schiff's account of this fantastical story -- the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.

Six Women of Salem is the first work to use the lives of a select number of representative women as a microcosm to illuminate the larger crisis of the Salem witch trials. By the end of the trials, beyond the twenty who were executed and the five who perished in prison, 207 individuals had been accused, 74 had been afflicted, 32 had officially accused their fellow neighbors, and 255 ordinary people had been inexorably drawn into that ruinous and murderous vortex, and this doesn't include the religious, judicial, and governmental leaders. All this adds up to what the Rev. Cotton Mather called a desolation of names.

The individuals involved are too often reduced to stock characters and stereotypes when accuracy is sacrificed to indignation. And although the flood of names and detail in the history of an extraordinary event like the Salem witch trials can swamp the individual lives involved, individuals still deserve to be remembered and, in remembering specific lives, modern readers can benefit from such historical intimacy. By examining the lives of six specific women, Marilynne Roach shows readers what it was like to be present throughout this horrific time and how it was impossible to live through it unchanged.

Discover the facts you've been missing from the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving story
Did freedom of religion & conscience exist in 16th century Europe?
How did kings of Spain, France & England, & Turkish Sultans, dominate people's lives?
What was the first empire on which the sun never set? How did its Invincible Armada sink?
Globalist Kings sought world empires. How miraculous was it for the Pilgrims to escape?
Did the Pilgrims experiment with communism?
How did the Dutch invention of joint-stock companies & the stock exchange fuel international trade?
How devastating were the Ottoman sieges of Constantinople, Malta & Vienna?
Did you know Pilgrims were terrorized by Muslim Barbary pirates?
Did you know our calendar was developed in the 16th century?
Who was Squanto & how did his amazing life rescue the fledgling Pilgrim community?
If you like speaking your views, participating in politics & sharing your faith without fear of government persecution, you will be fascinated by the compelling Pilgrim experience told from an amazing world perspective
--
Other chapters include:
-Age of Discovery
-Reformation
-Henry VIII
-Queen Elizabeth
-Role of the Printing Press
-Protestant Ripple Effect
-Suleiman the Magnificent
-Catherine de Medici
-Sir Francis Drake
-Sir Walter Raleigh
-The Lost Colony
-King James I
-The English Bible
-Puritan Religious Uniformity
-Jewish Influence on Pilgrims

The instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller!

Killing the Witches revisits one of the most frightening and inexplicable episodes in American history: the events of 1692 and 1693 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. What began as a mysterious affliction of two young girls who suffered violent fits and exhibited strange behavior soon spread to other young women. Rumors of demonic possession and witchcraft consumed Salem. Soon three women were arrested under suspicion of being witches--but as the hysteria spread, more than 200 people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, twenty were executed, and others died in jail or their lives were ruined.

Killing the Witches tells the dramatic history of how the Puritan tradition and the power of early American ministers shaped the origins of the United States, influencing the founding fathers, the American Revolution, and even the Constitutional Convention. The repercussions of Salem continue to the present day, notably in the real-life story behind The Exorcist and in contemporary witch hunts driven by social media. The result is a compulsively readable book about good, evil, community panic, and how fear can overwhelm fact and reason.

Explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of the United States history

Looking for the essentials of more than 200 years of United States history? Starting at the early civilizations, U.S. History For Dummies covers the growing pains of a new nation. Brush up on the major wars, from fighting against each other to fighting the world. And discover the major people and events that shaped the country. Stay in the know, with coverage of timely topics like climate change, Covid, and the January 6th Capitol riot. Then, when you're ready, challenge yourself with free online chapter quizzes. With history covering the start of the U.S. to the 2024 election, learn how this nation came to be what it is today.

• Read engaging accounts of the major events in the history of the United States
• Learn about important historical figures who shaped the nation
• Discover the background of the big issues that Americans face
• Explore important wars and iconic cultural moments
• FREE 1-year access to chapter quizzes online!

Whether you're a history buff eager to delve into the history of the United States or a student searching for a guide to help them with their studies, U.S. History For Dummies has you covered with clear, easy-to-understand information.

The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights (1787-1789) is a foundational document of American democracy. Written by delegates attending the Constitutional Convention, a gathering intended to revise the system of government established under the Articles of Confederation, The Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1788 before becoming effecting in 1789. Nearly two and a half centuries old, it is the oldest continually enforced national constitution in the world. The United States Bill of Rights, containing the first ten amendments to the Constitution, was ratified in 1791, codifying into law the essential individual rights and freedoms of Americans, setting limitations on government power, and diverting powers not specifically granted to Congress to the states and citizens. We the People. Beginning with these words affirming the democratic aspirations of the nation, The Constitution of the United States defines the foundational organization and function of the federal government. Despite being amended 27 times since its ratification and enforcement, The Constitution of the United States is seen as essential to the American system of government and political representation. Based on several earlier documents, including the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) and the English Magna Carta (1215), The United States Bill of Rights adds to the original Constitution-which focuses primarily on the organization and function of the federal government-certain protections and specifications targeting the rights of individual Americans, important safeguards determining the reach of the federal government and ensuring the states and the people are proportionately empowered. The First Amendment, perhaps the most recognizable, guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly, as well as the right of every citizen to petition the government without fear of reprisal or punishment..

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

God's Solution for America and the Nations of the World is another unprecedented and inspiring work by David and Jean Hertler, authors of the compelling two-volume series entitled, Re-inhabited: Republic for the United States of America.

Since the American Republic was uniquely founded over two centuries ago, there has been a plan in place by a relatively small faction of nefarious reprobates that have gained control of every government on earth through its money system of bondage, secret societies, as well as bribery and murder. Their agenda has been to work covertly in destroying every government and religion while gaining domination toward their luciferian One-World Government.

The modus operandi of this luciferian brood has been to steal the birthright of the American People by slowly infiltrating, destroying from within, and hiding knowledge of our true national identity given to us by our Founding Fathers, a Biblical Christian Republic. Four generations have now passed that have not known the founding principles and insight with an accurate historical outlook on its founding and objective. Hence, the American People, especially the Church (ekklesia), do not know their National Purpose, Prophetic Destiny and duty to God and country.

Knowledge of our true history clearly depicts the patterns throughout history that are playing out before us once again. It's like a tumbleweed through time rolling with a prophetic breeze across the continent that beckons this nation of people to stand to attention and to unite in the cause of Liberty, which is the cause of God, our duty and obligation as Americans and as Christians. The revelation knowledge brought forth in this book will bring an unmistakable call to action and fervor to reclaim our heritage and Virtue.

God's solution for America brings forward our true history and the solution to restore our foundations. It will enable you, the reader, to comprehend the bigger picture of cause-to-effect that got America to where it is today. You will be empowered by reading this book. Empowered to do what you may ask? To have faith to take the necessary course of actions for reversing the curses placed on our nation by the nefarious luciferian reprobates exposed in this book. We must work together to restore our National Purpose and Prophetic Destiny which foreshadows the redemption of the nations of the world as they too heed and follow the Light that shines forth once again as a city upon a hill. This is truly a spiritual revolution!

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History
New York Times Book Review Top Ten books of the Year

With a new preface marking the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower.

How did America begin? That simple question launches the acclaimed author of In the Hurricane's Eye and Valiant Ambition on an extraordinary journey to understand the truth behind our most sacred national myth: the voyage of the Mayflower and the settlement of Plymouth Colony. As Philbrick reveals in this electrifying history of the Pilgrims, the story of Plymouth Colony was a fifty-five year epic that began in peril and ended in war. New England erupted into a bloody conflict that nearly wiped out the English colonists and natives alike. These events shaped the existing communites and the country that would grow from them.

John Cotton penned his primer and catechesism in the 1600s, but the Puritans brought it with them when they came to America, where it it flourished. Indeed, one of our earliest copies available is this facsimile version from 1777, which was sub-titled, Improved for The More Easy Attaining the True Reading of English. Witness in this careful reproduction how seamlessly the teaching of literacy in the colonies was with teaching of Christianity. Many reproductions of this primer are small and hard to read, but this edition has slightly increased the size of the text so that it is more readable. As with any facsimile, all the flaws will by definition be retained. On the same measure, all the aspects that made the work great remain, too.

Historians have speculated on a web of possible causes for the witchcraft that stated in Salem and spread across the region-religious crisis, ergot poisoning, an encephalitis outbreak, frontier war hysteria--but most agree that there was no single factor. Rather, as Emerson Baker illustrates in this seminal new work, Salem was a perfect storm a unique convergence of conditions and events that produced something extraordinary throughout New England in 1692 and the following years, and which has haunted us ever since.

Baker shows how a range of factors in the Bay colony in the 1690s, including a new charter and government, a lethal frontier war, and religious and political conflicts, set the stage for the dramatic events in Salem. Engaging a range of perspectives, he looks at the key players in the outbreak--the accused witches and the people they allegedly bewitched, as well as the judges and government officials who prosecuted them--and wrestles with questions about why the Salem tragedy unfolded as it did, and why it has become an enduring legacy.

Salem in 1692 was a critical moment for the fading Puritan government of Massachusetts Bay, whose attempts to suppress the story of the trials and erase them from memory only fueled the popular imagination. Baker argues that the trials marked a turning point in colonial history from Puritan communalism to Yankee independence, from faith in collective conscience to skepticism toward moral governance. A brilliantly told tale, A Storm of Witchcraft also puts Salem's storm into its broader context as a part of the ongoing narrative of American history and the history of the Atlantic World.

While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are Albion's Seed, no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

Once it was one of the most infamous events in early American history. Today, it has been nearly forgotten.

In an obscure, two-hundred-year-old museum in a little town in western Massachusetts there stands what once was the most revered relic from the history of early New England: the massive, tomahawk-scarred door that came to symbolize the notorious Deerfield Massacre of 1704. This impregnable barricade--known to early Americans as The Old Indian Door--constructed from double-thick planks of Massachusetts oak and studded with hand-wrought iron nails to repel the tomahawk blades wielded by several attacking Native tribes, is the sole surviving artifact from one of the most dramatic moments in colonial American history: In the leap year of 1704, on the cold, snowy night of February 29, hundreds of Indians and their French allies swept down on an isolated frontier outpost to slaughter or capture its inhabitants.

The sacking of Deerfield led to one of the greatest sagas of survival, sacrifice, family, and faith ever told in North America. One hundred and twelve survivors, including their fearless minister, the Reverend John Williams, were captured and forced to march three hundred miles north into enemy territory in Canada. Any captive who faltered or became too weak to continue the journey--including Williams's own wife--fell under the tomahawk or war club.

Survivors of the march willed themselves to live and endured captivity. Ransomed by the royal governor of Massachusetts, the captives later returned home to Deerfield, rebuilt their town and, for the rest of their lives, told the incredible tale. The memoir of Rev. Williams, The Redeemed Captive, published soon after his liberation, became one of the first bestselling books in American history and remains a literary classic. The Old Indian Door is a touchstone that conjures up one of the most dramatic and inspiring stories of colonial America. Now, in this immersive and memorable book [and] with his gifts of great storytelling and penetrating insight, James Swanson has given us a compelling account of an unjustly forgotten episode in American history (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of And There Was Light).

The book that launched environmental history, William Cronon's Changes in the Land, now revised and updated.

Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize

In this landmark work of environmental history, William Cronon offers an original and profound explanation of the effects European colonists' sense of property and their pursuit of capitalism had upon the ecosystems of New England. Reissued here with an updated afterword by the author and a new preface by the distinguished colonialist John Demos, Changes in the Land, provides a brilliant inter-disciplinary interpretation of how land and people influence one another. With its chilling closing line, The people of plenty were a people of waste, Cronon's enduring and thought-provoking book is ethno-ecological history at its best.

The Instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller! What really happened at the notorious Salem witch trials.

With over 19 million copies in print and a remarkable record of #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestsellers, Bill O'Reilly's Killing series is the most popular series of narrative histories in the world.

Killing the Witches revisits one of the most frightening and inexplicable episodes in American history: the events of 1692 and 1693 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. What began as a mysterious affliction of two young girls who suffered violent fits and exhibited strange behavior soon spread to other young women. Rumors of demonic possession and witchcraft consumed Salem. Soon three women were arrested under suspicion of being witches--but as the hysteria spread, more than 200 people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, twenty were executed, and others died in jail or their lives were ruined.

Killing the Witches tells the dramatic history of how the Puritan tradition and the power of early American ministers shaped the origins of the United States, influencing the founding fathers, the American Revolution, and even the Constitutional Convention. The repercussions of Salem continue to the present day, notably in the real-life story behind The Exorcist and in contemporary witch hunts driven by social media. The result is a compulsively readable book about good, evil, community panic, and how fear can overwhelm fact and reason.

Once it was one of the most infamous events in early American history. Today, it has been nearly forgotten.

In an obscure, two-hundred-year-old museum in a little town in western Massachusetts there stands what once was the most revered relic from the history of early New England: the massive, tomahawk-scarred door that came to symbolize the notorious Deerfield Massacre of 1704. This impregnable barricade--known to early Americans as The Old Indian Door--constructed from double-thick planks of Massachusetts oak and studded with hand-wrought iron nails to repel the tomahawk blades wielded by several attacking Native tribes, is the sole surviving artifact from one of the most dramatic moments in colonial American history: In the leap year of 1704, on the cold, snowy night of February 29, hundreds of Indians and their French allies swept down on an isolated frontier outpost to slaughter or capture its inhabitants.

The sacking of Deerfield led to one of the greatest sagas of survival, sacrifice, family, and faith ever told in North America. One hundred and twelve survivors, including their fearless minister, the Reverend John Williams, were captured and forced to march three hundred miles north into enemy territory in Canada. Any captive who faltered or became too weak to continue the journey--including Williams's own wife--fell under the tomahawk or war club.

Survivors of the march willed themselves to live and endured captivity. Ransomed by the royal governor of Massachusetts, the captives later returned home to Deerfield, rebuilt their town and, for the rest of their lives, told the incredible tale. The memoir of Rev. Williams, The Redeemed Captive, published soon after his liberation, became one of the first bestselling books in American history and remains a literary classic. The Old Indian Door is a touchstone that conjures up one of the most dramatic and inspiring stories of colonial America. Now, in this immersive and memorable book [and] with his gifts of great storytelling and penetrating insight, James Swanson has given us a compelling account of an unjustly forgotten episode in American history (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of And There Was Light).

Over several decades beginning in 1620, tens of thousands of devout English colonists known as Puritans came to America. They believed that bringing Christianity to the natives would liberate them from darkness. Daniel Gookin, Massachusetts's missionary superintendent, called such efforts a war of the Lord, a war in which Christ would deliver captive souls from Satan's bondage.

When Puritan soldiers slaughtered hundreds of indigenous men, women, and children at Fort Mystic in 1637, during the Pequot War, they believed they were doing God's will. The same was true during King Philip's War, perhaps the bloodiest war in American history. The Puritan clergyman Increase Mather described this conflict, too, as a war of the Lord, a war in which God was judging the enemies of his people.

Matthew J. Tuininga argues that these two wars are inextricably linked. Puritan Christianity, he shows, shaped both the spiritual and military conquests of New England from beginning to end. It is not only that the people who did these things happened to be Christians; it is that Christianity was the framework they used to guide, interpret, and defend every major act of peace or war. They made sincere efforts to treat Natives according to Christian principles of love and justice as they understood them, and their sustained missionary efforts demonstrate how serious they were about saving native souls. Yet they appealed to Christianity just as confidently when they subjugated, enslaved, or killed native peoples in the name of justice. A mission they saw as spiritual, peaceful, benevolent, and just devolved into a military conquest that was virtually genocidal.

This book tells the story of how this happened from the perspective of those who lived it, both colonists and Native Americans.