Men and women make history. Their ideas and their hopes, their goals and contrivances for reaching those goals, shape all experience, past and present. Each generation has committed the nation to a complex of policies, some the product of thought and debate, others of habit or inadvertence, still others of calculated or undiscerning indifference. It took long thought and hard debate to settle the issues of independence, of democratic reform of expansion, of slavery, of union itself, of control of private economic power, of resistance to totalitarianism across two oceans. All those issues and many more have made up the national experience.

The National Experience, Part One: A History of the United States to 1877 (v. 1)

Edmund S. MORGAN

William S. McFeely

John Morton Blum

Thomson Learning

United States History from 1789 - President Ford

National Experience : A History of the United States

John M. Blum

Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

“The best short biography of Franklin ever written.”—Gordon S. Wood Benjamin Franklin is perhaps the most remarkable figure in American history: the greatest statesman of his age, he played a pivotal role in the formation of the American republic. He was also a pioneering scientist, a bestselling author, the country’s first postmaster general, a printer, a bon vivant, a diplomat, a ladies’ man, and a moralist—and the most prominent celebrity of the eighteenth century. Franklin was, however, a man of vast contradictions, as Edmund Morgan demonstrates in this brilliant biography. A reluctant revolutionary, Franklin had desperately wished to preserve the British Empire, and he mourned the break even as he led the fight for American independence. Despite his passion for science, Franklin viewed his groundbreaking experiments as secondary to his civic duties. And although he helped to draft both the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, he had personally hoped that the new American government would take a different shape. Unraveling the enigma of Franklin’s character, Morgan shows that he was the rare individual who consistently placed the public interest before his own desires. Written by one of our greatest historians, Benjamin Franklin offers a provocative portrait of America’s most extraordinary patriot.

Benjamin Franklin (Yale Nota Bene S)

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Yale University Press

This volume presents an eminent historian's progress over thirty years in trying to understand the American Revolution. Here is the historian at his best―beginning with the assumption that things are not always as they appear to be, delighting in the discovery of the previously unknown, and offering new interpretations with style, wit, and the good sense to know that there are always more questions to be answered. The Revolution is fertile ground for the historian's craft, as these essays attest. Edmund S. Morgan discovers in American protests against British taxation an affirmation of rights that the colonists adhered to with surprising consistency, and that guided them ultimately to independence. Then, after a general reassessment of the importance of the Revolution, he moves to a study of it as an intellectual movement, which challenged the best minds of the period to transform their political world. Next, in studying the ethical basis of the Revolution, Morgan traces the shaping of national consciousness by puritanical attitudes toward work and leisure. This leads him to an exploration of the paradoxical relationship between slavery and freedom, and the role their relationship played in the Revolution. Finally, thinking about the Revolution on its anniversary, Morgan looks once again at the Founding Fathers and the innovative daring, admiring most their ability to reject what had hitherto been taken for granted.

The Challenge of the American Revolution

History

Americas

W.W.Norton&Company

Americans did not at first cherish the idea of political severance from their mother country. In just a few years, however, they came to desire indepen-dence above all else. What brought about this change of feeling and how did it affect the lives of their citizens? To answer these questions, Edmund S. Morgan looks at three men who may fairly be called the "architects of independence," the first presidents of the United States. Anecdotes from their letters and diaries recapture the sense of close identity many early Americans felt with their countryâ€™s political struggles. Through this perspective, Morgan examines the growth of independence from its initial declaration and discovers something of its meaning, for three men who responded to its challenge and for the nation that they helped create.
 The Meaning of Independence, first published in 1976, has become one of the standard short works on the first three presidents of the United Statesâ€”George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. When the Mount Vernon Ladiesâ€™ Association and the Organization of American Historians asked 1,500 historians to name the ten best books about George Washington, this book was one of those selected. In this updated edition, the author provides a new preface to address a few remaining concerns he has pondered in the quarter century since first publication.
Tag:A classic work on the founding by the author of the bestselling Benjamin Franklin

The Meaning of Independence: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

“Through this great scholarly effort of Yale’s Professor Morgan, we now have a unique access to the culture and intellectual life of 18th-century America. We also have for the first time a full biography of a remarkable colonial worthy, one which general readers can enjoy and scholars use with confidence.” ―Library Journal In this life of Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University from 1778 to 1795, the noted historian Edmund S. Morgan portrays a man who reflects the thought and temper of an age in New England and the middle colonies.

The Gentle Puritan: A Life of Ezra Stiles, 1727-1795

Professionals & Academics

American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia

Prologue to Revolution: Sources and Documents on the Stamp Act Crisis, 1764-1766 (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press)

University of North Carolina Press

Americans did not at first cherish the idea of political severance from their mother country. In just a few years, however, they came to desire indepen-dence above all else. What brought about this change of feeling and how did it affect the lives of their citizens? To answer these questions, Edmund S. Morgan looks at three men who may fairly be called the "architects of independence," the first presidents of the United States. Anecdotes from their letters and diaries recapture the sense of close identity many early Americans felt with their country’s political struggles. Through this perspective, Morgan examines the growth of independence from its initial declaration and discovers something of its meaning, for three men who responded to its challenge and for the nation that they helped create.
The Meaning of Independence, first published in 1976, has become one of the standard short works on the first three presidents of the United States―George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. When the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association and the Organization of American Historians asked 1,500 historians to name the ten best books about George Washington, this book was one of those selected. In this updated edition, the author provides a new preface to address a few remaining concerns he has pondered in the quarter century since first publication.
Tag:A classic work on the founding by the author of the bestselling Benjamin Franklin

The Meaning of Independence: John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson

University of Virginia Press

The Meaning of Independence: John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson (Richard Lectures)

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Books by Edmund S. MORGAN