Published posthumously on the occasion of America's centennial celebration, George Lippard's Washington and His Generals, &“1776&” compiles into a single volume his five popular books of Revolutionary-era historical fiction. The first book, &“The Battle-Day of Germantown,&” features Lippard's hometown and George Washington's intricate and ultimately overcomplicated assault on the British during the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revolution.&“The Wissahikon,&” the second book, depicts the defecting of a Tory to the rebel cause after witnessing General William Howe's failed attempt to bribe a pious George Washington following the British capture of Philadelphia. In &“Benedict Arnold,&” the infamous treachery of the treasonous Continental Army general is the subject. With &“The Battle of the Brandywine,&” Lippard recounts the American despair over the September 11, 1777, battle that drove back the Continental forces, leaving the capital in Philadelphia under British occupation. The collection ends with the fifth book, &“The Fourth of July, 1776,&” his imagined version of the day that inspired most of Lippard's patriotic writing. It includes the often quoted &"Speech of the Unknown&" given by an anonymous revolutionary, which in the book provided the final impetus for the delegates to sign the Declaration of Independence.

In November 1774, a pamphlet to the People of America was published in Philadelphia and London. It forcefully articulated American rights and liberties and argued that the Americans needed to declare their independence from Britain. The author of this pamphlet was Charles Lee, a former British army officer turned revolutionary, who was one of the earliest advocates for American independence. Lee fought on and off the battlefield for expanded democracy, freedom of conscience, individual liberties, human rights, and for the formal education of women. Renegade Revolutionary: The Life of General Charles Lee ais a vivid new portrait of one of the most complex and controversial of the American revolutionaries. LeeOCOs erratic behavior and comportment, his capture and more than one year imprisonment by the British, and his court martial after the battle of Monmouth in 1778 have dominated his place in the historiography of the American Revolution. This book retells the story of a man who had been dismissed by contemporaries and by history. Few American revolutionaries shared his radical political outlook, his cross-cultural experiences, his cosmopolitanism, and his confidence that the American Revolution could be won primarily by the militia (or irregulars) rather than a centralized regular army. By studying LeeOCOs life, his political and military ideas, and his style of leadership, we gain new insights into the way the American revolutionaries fought and won their independence from Britain."

The early history of American settlement, pioneering, and independence is marked by fascinating characters and events often shrouded in legend. Filmmakers have sought to capture these characters, as diverse as Daniel Boone, Francis Marion and Pocahontas, and events, as disparate as the Lost Colony, the Boston Tea Party and the French and Indian War. This comprehensive filmography provides production information and commentary on all films and television episodes set during the years between the first settlements in the future United States and the fledgling country's War of 1812 with Britain. Films are arranged alphabetically, and a detailed introduction provides a thorough overview of the period, with references to films chronicling specific events.