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Morris Center for Law and Liberty Research Hub

Faculty Recommended Reading List 


COLONIAL AMERICA


✓   A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America by James Horn (Unlimited access to HCU students and faculty)
✓ The Mayflower and Her Passengers by Caleb H. Johnson
✓ picture of a book  Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick (Moody Library Call Number: F68.P44 2006)

✓ picture of a book  Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America by Benjamin Woolley (Moody Library Call Number: F234.J3 W66 2007)

✓ Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation by David A. Price
✓ American Colonies: The Settling of North America, Vol. 1 by Alan Taylor
✓ Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma by Camilla Townsend
✓ Slavery in Colonial America, 1619–1776 by Betty Wood
✓ Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America by Peter Wood
✓ Mayflower: The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America by Rebecca Fraser


REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA


✓ picture of a book   The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson (Moody Library Call Number: E230.A84 2019)
✓ picture of a book   The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 by Rick Atkinson (Moody Library Call Number: E230 .A846 2025
✓ picture of a book   The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783 by Joseph Ellis (Moody Library Call Number: E210.E45 2021)
✓ picture of a book   Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence by Joseph Ellis (Moody Library Call Number: E208.E48 2013)
✓ picture of a book   1776 by David McCullough (Moody Library Call Number: E208.M396 2005)
✓ picture of a book   Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick (Moody Library Call Number: E241.B9 P48 2013)
✓ picture of a book   In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown by Nathaniel Philbrick (Moody Library Call Number: E241.Y6 P55 2018) 
✓ picture of a book   American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier (Moody Library Call Number: E221.M24 1997)
✓ picture of a book   American Revolutions: A Continental History by Alan Taylor (Moody Library Call Number: E208.T36 2016)

✓ Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick


INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FOUNDING

✓ picture of a book   The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783 by Joseph J. Ellis (Moody Library Call Number: E210.E45 2021)
✓ picture of a book   Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution by Forrest McDonald (Moody Library Call Number: JA84.U5 M43 1985)
✓ picture of a book   The Birth of the Republic, 1763–89 (The Chicago History of American Civilization) by Edward S. Morgan (Moody Library Call Number: E208.M85)

✓     The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 by Gordon S. Wood (Unlimited access for HCU faculty and students)
✓ picture of a book   Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood (Moody Library Call Number: KF4541 .W659 2021)
✓ picture of a book   The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood (Moody Library Call Number: E209.W65 1992)

✓ The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn
✓ The Classical and Christian Origins of American Politics by Kody W. Cooper
✓ The Origins of American Constitutionalism by Donald S. Lutz
✓ The American Revolution: A History by Gordon S. Wood


CREATING THE CONSTITUTION


✓ The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

✓ picture of a book   The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates by Ralph Ketcham (Moody Library Call Number: JK155.A57 1986)
✓     The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution by Michael J. Klarman (Unlimited access for HCU students and faculty)
✓ picture of a book   Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 by Pauline Maier (Moody Library Call Number: KF4541.M278 2010)

✓ The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution by David O. Stewart
✓ What the Anti-Federalists Were For: The Political Thought of the Opponents of the Constitution by Herbert J. Storing
✓ Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics by H.W. Brands
✓ Miracle At Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May - September 1787 by Catherine Drinker Bowen
✓ Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 by Christopher Collier
✓ The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison (Modern Library Classics) by James Madison, Edward J. Larson, and Michael P. Winship


AMERICAN FOUNDERS

✓ picture of a book   James Madison: A Life Reconsidered by Lynne Cheney (Moody Library Call Number: E342.C48 2014)
✓ picture of a book   Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (Moody Library Call Number: E302.6.H2 C48 2004)
✓ picture of a book   Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow (Moody Library Call Number: E312.C495 2010)
✓ picture of a book   American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis (Moody Library Call Number: E332.2.E45 1997)
✓ picture of a book   Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis (Moody Library Call Number: E302.5.E45 2000)
✓ picture of a book   His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis (Moody Library Call Number: E312.E245 2004)
✓ picture of a book   Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson (Moody Library Call Number: E302.6.F8 I83 2003)
✓ picture of a book   John Adams by David McCullough (Moody Library Call Number: 322.M38 2001
✓ picture of a book   Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham (Moody Library Call Number: E332.M48 2012)
✓ picture of a book   The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin by Gordon S. Wood (Moody Library Call Number)

✓ Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution by Mike Duncan
✓ The Revolutionary Sam Adams by Stacy Schiff