First published 2022
Adam Van Doren traverses the original thirteen colonies to document places where America's founding unfolded. The author visits thirty-seven landmarks from the Bunker Hill monument in Massachusetts to Camden Battlefield in South Carolina. He explores taverns, meeting houses, battlefields, forts, and homes that shaped the nation. Van Doren enters cabins at Valley Forge where nearly two thousand soldiers died during winter, dines at Philadelphia's City Tavern with its eighteenth-century menu, and visits homes of Alexander Hamilton and John and Abigail Adams. He examines the Joseph Webb House where Rochambeau planned with Washington and tracks the Swamp Fox in Georgia. The book includes both celebrated and obscure locations, from busy city streets to remote paths. Van Doren presents an unvarnished perspective, visiting sites like Philipsburg Manor where enslaved people labored in the Hudson River Valley. This journey reveals the Founders' achievements alongside their moral failures, offering readers a comprehensive tour through the places where revolutionaries forged a new nation.
Genres: biography, history, non-fiction, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: educational, informative, journalistic
Setting: Bunker Hill, Camden Battlefield, Valley Forge, City Tavern, Philipsburg Manor, Hudson River Valley
Period: 18th-century, American Revolution
256 pages · Hardcover · David R. Godine, Publisher