USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

By Joseph J. Ellis

FROM THE PREFACE: “No Event in American history which was so improbable at the time has seemed so inevitable in retrospect as the American Revolution. On the inevitability side, it is true there were voices back then urging prospective patriots to regard American independence as an early version of manifest destiny. Tom Paine, for example, claimed that it was simply a matter of common sense that an island couldnot rule a continent. And Thomas Jefferson's lyrical rendering of the reasons for the entire revolutionaryenterprise emphasized the self-evident character of the principles at stake. Several other prominent American revolutionaries also talked as if they were actors in a historical drama whose script had already been written by the gods. In his old age, John Adams recalled his youthful intimations of the providential forces at work….”

NY. Vintage. 2002. 307p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

By Joseph J. Ellis

FROM THE PREFACE: “My own relationship with George Washington began early. I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, and attended St. Mary's grade school, about eight miles down Mount Vernon Boulevard from the estate where the great man once walked the earth. Because my school was so prox- imate to Mount Vernon, my teachers-all nuns--forced us to make frequent pilgrimages to the historic site where the spirit of America's greatest secular saint resided. Back then the tour was less historically informed than it is now. I don't recall slavery being mentioned at all. I do recall being told that the story of Washington's wooden teeth was a myth--my first encounter with the notion that you could not always trust what you read in history books. I remember this clearly because the high point of the tour was Washington's dentures, which were encased in glass and looked to me like a really gross instrument of torture made of metal and bone. The only other thing I remember is the majestic view of the Potomac from the piazza on the east side of the mansion….”

NY. Vintage. 2005. 354p.