Starr Center Donates 78 New Washington-Era History Books to Miller Library

Chestertown, MD — Miller Library is awash in the latest books about George Washington and the Revolutionary era, thanks to a gift from the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience of 78 volumes being considered for this year's George Washington Book Prize.

Books about everything from the men and women who founded the new nation to the Native Americans who were displaced in the process will be on display at the library until the winner of the $50,000 award is announced at Mount Vernon on May 29.

Now in its fourth year, the George Washington Book Prize honors work that contributes to a greater public understanding of the life and career of George Washington and/or America's founding era. Conceived and administered at the Starr Center (in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and George Washington's Mount Vernon), the prize is awarded annually by a panel of distinguished historians. It is one of the largest literary awards in the nation.

Every year, publishers are asked to submit five copies of each book they enter—three are forwarded directly to the jurors, one is kept at the Starr Center, and one is set aside for Miller Library. As a result, nearly every major book published about the founding period over the past four years is now part of the College's collection.

The number of George Washington Prize entrants continues to grow—this year, the total retail value of the donated books is about $2,700, a 50 percent increase over last year's cache.

"It certainly strengthens our collection on George Washington, the Founders, and the whole founding era," says an appreciative Dr. Ruth Shoge, Director of Miller Library. "I'm impressed with the wide variety of subjects on the era ... the financial aspects, slavery, gender ... I think the scholarship is really opening up on that period, beyond the Founders to other issues we still grapple with."

Publishers have been showing an increased interest in the period, and the result is more diversity—books that go beyond Washington and other household-name heroes of early America, and even beyond the borders of the United States, reflecting on how our own country's revolution has affected the rest of the world. "These are not just a bunch of biographies of dead white males," said Adam Goodheart, the Starr Center's Hodson Trust-Griswold Director. "Collectively, they provide a vivid and broad portrait of an entire period of history, as well as address many questions that still confront the 21st century."

Meanwhile, this year's panel of jurors is reading and discussing each of those 78 books—not a job for the faint-hearted—and narrowing the field. Washington College President Baird Tipson will announce the three finalists at Convocation on George Washington's Birthday.

Books Donated

• Allison, Robert J. New England Remembers: The Boston Tea Party (Commonwealth Editions)
• Armitage, David. The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Harvard)
• Axelrod, Alan. Blooding at Great Meadows: Young George Washington and the Battle that Shaped the Man (Running Press)
• Axelrod, Alan. The Real History of the American Revolution: A New Look at the Past(Sterling)
• Berg, Scott W. Grand Avenues: The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C. (Pantheon)
• Bober, Natalie S. Thomas Jefferson: Draftsman of a Nation (Virginia)
• Bouton, Terry. Taming Democracy: 'The People,' the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution (Oxford)
• Broadwater, Robert P. American Generals: A Biographical Dictionary of the Revolutionary War (McFarland)
• Burian, A. Ward. George Washington's Legacy of Leadership (Morgan James)
• Burke, James. American Connections. The Founding Fathers. Networked. (Simon & Schuster)
• Burns, Eric. Virtue, Valor, & Vanity: The Founding Fathers and the Pursuit of Fame(Arcade)
• Calloway, Colin G. The Shawnees and the War for America (Penguin)
• Carp, Benjamin. Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution (Oxford)
• Chadwick, Bruce. The General and Mrs. Washington: The Untold Story of a Marriage and a Revolution (Sourcebooks, Inc.)
• Church, Forrest. So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State (Harcourt)
• Clary, David A. Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship that Saved the Revolution (Bantam)
• Cumfer, Cynthia. Separate Peoples, One Land: The Minds of Cherokees, Blacks, and Whites on the Tennessee Frontier (North Carolina)
• Dershowitz, Alan. Finding Jefferson: A Lost Letter, A Remarkable Discovery, and the First Amendment in an Age of Terrorism (Wiley)
• Dunkerly, Robert M. The Battle of Kings Mountain (History Press)
• Dunn, Susan. Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison & the Decline of Virginia(Basic Books)
• Dunn, Jr., Walter S. Choosing Sides on the Frontier in the American Revolution(Praeger)
• Ellis, Joseph J. American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic (Knopf)
• Ellis, Joseph J. The Founding Fathers: The Essential Guide to the Men Who Made America (Wiley)
• Faherty, Duncan. Remodeling the Nation: The Architecture of American Identity, 1776-1858 (New Hampshire)
• Farris, Michael. From Tyndale to Madison: How the Death of an English Martyr Led to the American Bill of Rights (B&H)
• Ferling, John. Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence(Oxford)
• Fleming, Thomas. The Perils of Peace: America's Struggle for Survival after Yorktown(HarperCollins/Smithsonian)
• Gaines, James R. For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions(Norton)
• Gibson, Alan. Understanding the Founding: The Crucial Questions (Kansas)
• Glover, Lorri. Southern Sons: Becoming Men in the New Nation (Johns Hopkins)
• Goodfellow, Anne Marie. Textual Evidence of the Life of Simon Girty, American Revolutionary Turncoat: An Historian's Guide to the Draper Manuscript Collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society (The Edwin Mellen Press)
• Gray, Edward G. The Making of John Ledyard: Empire and Ambition in the life of an Early American Traveler (Yale)
• Griffin, Patrick. American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier (Hill and Wang)
• Hagger, Nicholas. The Secret Founding of America: The Real Story of Freemasons, Puritans & the Battle for the New World (Sterling/Watkins)
• Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother: A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Hitchens, Christopher. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man (Atlantic Monthly)
• Hogan, Margaret A., C., et al. The Adams Papers: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 8, March 1787-December 1789 (Harvard)
• Hogan, Margaret A. and Taylor, James C. My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams (Belknap)
• Holland, Matthew S. Bonds of Affection: Civic Charity and the Making of America—Winthrop, Jefferson, and Lincoln (Georgetown)
• Holton, Woody. Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (Hill and Wang)
• Hormats, Robert D. The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars (Holt)
• Howard, Hugh and Roger Straus III. Houses of the Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America and the Way They Lived (Artisan)
• Hyland, Matthew G. Montpelier and the Madisons: House, Home and American Heritage (History Press)
• Isenberg, Nancy. Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (Viking)
• Kierner, Cynthia A. The Contrast: Manners, Morals and Authority in the Early American Republic (NYU)
• Koschnik, Albrecht. Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together: Associations, Partisanship, and Culture in Philadelphia, 1775-1840. (Virginia)
• Kukla, Jon. Mr. Jefferson's Women (Knopf)
• Lane, Eric, and Oreskes, Michael. The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country and Why It Can Again (Bloomsbury) Larson, Edward J. A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign (Free Press)
• Latimer, Jon. 1812: War with America (Belknap/)
• Linklater, Andro. The Fabric of America: How Our Borders and Boundaries Shaped the Country and Forged our National Identity (Walker)
• Loughran, Trish. The Republic in Print: Print Culture in the Age of U.S. Nation Building, 1770-1870 (Columbia)
• Marcus, Maeva, editor. The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800, Volume Eight, Cases: 1798-1800 (Columbia)
• McDonnell, Michael A. The Politics of War: Race, Class & Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia (North Carolina)
• McGuire, Thomas J. The Philadelphia Campaign (Volume II): Germantown and the Roads to Valley Forge (Stackpole)
• McKenna, George. The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism (Yale) Miller, Amelia F. and Riggs, A. R.. Romances, Remedies and Revolution: The Journal of Dr. Elihu Ashley of Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1773-1775 (Massachusetts)
• Moore, Peter N. World of Toil and Strife: Community Transformation in Backcountry South Carolina, 1750-1805 (South Carolina)
• Moyer, Paul B. Wild Yankees: The Struggle for Independence Along Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Frontier (Cornell)
• Neimeyer, Charles P. The Revolutionary War: American Soldiers' Lives (Greenwood)
• Onuf, Peter S. The Mind of Thomas Jefferson (Virginia)
• Pangle, Lorraine Smith. The Political Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin (Johns Hopkins)
• Pasles, Paul C. Benjamin Franklin's Numbers: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey(Princeton)
• Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship: A Human History (Viking)
• Riordan, Liam. Many Identities, One Nation: The Revolution and its Legacy in the Mid-Atlantic (Penn)
• Ryan, D. Michael. Concord and the Dawn of Revolution: The Hidden Truths (History Press)
• Shaffer, Jason. Performing Patriotism: National Identity in the Colonial and Revolutionary Theater (Penn)
• Shain, Barry Alan. The Nature of Rights at the American Founding and Beyond(Virginia)
• Sidbury, James. Becoming African in America: Race and Nation in the Early Black Atlantic (Oxford)
• Stephenson, Michael. Patriot Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought(HarperCollins)
• Stewart, David O. The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution(Simon & Schuster)
• Stockdale, Eric and Holland, Randy J. Middle Temple Lawyers and the American Revolution (Thomson)
• Unger, Harlow Giles. America's Second Revolution: How George Washington Defeated Patrick Henry and Saved the Nation (Wiley)
• Urban, Mark. Fusiliers: The Saga of a British Redcoat Regiment in the American Revolution (Walker)
• Waterman, Bryan. Republic of Intellect: The Friendly Club of New York City and the Making of American Literature (Johns Hopkins)
• Wilbanks, Charles, editor. The American Revolution and Righteous Community: Selected Sermons of Bishop Robert Smith (South Carolina)
• Winik, Jay. The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World: 1788-1800 (HarperCollins)
• Zagarri, Rosemarie. Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic (Penn)

January 21, 2008