A Nation Rising: Untold Tales from America's Hidden History – A Gritty, Irreverent, and Tumultuous US History of the Early 1800s - Softcover

Davis, Kenneth C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061118214 ISBN 13: 9780061118210

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 2011

Synopsis

“History in Davis’s hands is loud, coarse, painful, funny, irreverent—and memorable.”

— San Francisco Chronicle

Following on his New York Times bestsellers America’s Hidden History and Don’t Know Much About History, Ken Davis explores the next chapter in the country’s hidden history: the gritty first half of the 19th century, among the most tumultuous in the nation’s short life.

These are the stories often left out of the textbooks—the moments that truly defined a rising nation.

• Fort Mims Massacre: The bloody frontier battle that shocked the nation, sparked a brutal war against the Creek Nation, and launched the military career of Andrew Jackson.
• A Daring Slave Rebellion: The forgotten story of Madison Washington, an escaped slave who led a successful revolt aboard the brig Creole, seizing freedom for more than 100 people and creating an international crisis.
• The Second Seminole War: A decades-long guerilla war in the swamps of Florida where runaway slaves and Seminole warriors joined forces to fight the U.S. Army to a bloody stalemate.
• Anti-Immigrant Riots: The shocking sectarian violence of the Philadelphia 'Bible Riots,' a forgotten chapter of American intolerance where Nativist mobs burned churches in the City of Brotherly Love.
• Manifest Destiny's Power Couple: The intertwined journey of explorer John C. Frémont and his brilliant wife Jessie Benton Frémont, whose ambition and adventures helped push America's borders to the Pacific.

About this title

About the Author

Kenneth C. Davis is the New York Times bestselling author of A Nation Rising; America's Hidden History; and Don't Know Much About^® History, which spent thirty-five consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, sold more than 1.7 million copies, and gave rise to his phenomenal Don't Know Much About^® series for adults and children. A resident of New York City and Dorset, Vermont, Davis frequently appears on national television and radio and has been a commentator on NPR's All Things Considered. He blogs regularly at www.dontknowmuch.com.

From the Back Cover

In the dramatic period from 1800 through 1850, the United States went from a tiny newborn nation on the Atlantic seaboard to a near-empire that spanned the continent. But America's path to nationhood was vastly more complex than the tidily packaged national myth of a destiny made manifest by visionary political leaders and fearless pioneers. In A Nation Rising, bestselling author Kenneth C. Davis offers fascinating, intertwining stories about historical episodes whose great issues—ambition, power, territorial expansion, slavery, intolerance, civil rights, freedom of the press—reverberate to this day, including:

• Aaron Burr's 1807 trial, culminating in one of our nation's first media circuses
• The 1813 Indian uprising and ensuing massacre, exposing the powerful conflicts at the heart of America's expansion
• The mutiny aboard the slave ship Creole, illustrating how the institution of slavery both destroyed lives and warped our nation's founding
• The bloody "Bible Riots" in Philadelphia, erupting in an early episode of deadly anti-immigrant sentiment

Eye-opening history and riveting storytelling, A Nation Rising is a powerful reminder of the ways in which our past continues to shape our present.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061118214
• ISBN 13: 9780061118210
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 294