The Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History of America from Discovery through the Civil War

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David Brion Davis, Steven Mintz
Oxford University Press, Oct 15, 1998 - History - 608 pages
Drawing on a gold mine of primary documents--including letters, diary entries, personal narratives, political speeches, broadsides, trial transcripts, and contemporary newspaper articles--The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the past to life in a way few histories ever do. Here is a panoramic look at early American history as captured in the words of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and many other historical figures, both famous and obscure. In these pieces, the living voices of the past speak to us from opposing viewpoints--from the vantage point of loyalists as well as patriots, slaves as well as masters. The documents collected here provide a fuller understanding of such historical issues as Columbus's dealings with Native Americans, the Stamp Act Crisis, the Declaration of Independence, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Missouri Crisis, the Mexican War, and Harpers Ferry, to name but a few. Compiled by Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Brion Davis and Steven Mintz, and accompanied by extensive illustrations of original documents, The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the reader back in time, to meet the men and women who lived through the momentous events that shaped our nation.

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Contents

Introduction
1
PART 1 FIRST ENCOUNTERS
29
PART 2 EUROPEAN COLONIZATION NORTH OF MEXICO
43
PART 3 A LAND OF CONTRASTS
85
PART 4 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR
123
PART 5 THE AGE OF REVOLUTION 17651825
139
PART 6 CREATING A NEW NATION
211
PART 7 ANTEBELLUM AMERICA
323
PART 8 CIVIL WAR
501
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About the author (1998)

David Brion Davis is Sterling Professor of History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. His work has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Albert J. Beveridge Award, and the Bancroft Prize, among many other honors. He lives in Orange, Connecticut. Steven Mintz is Professor of History at the University of Houston. He has published works on slavery, American reform movements, and the history of the American family. He lives in Houston.

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