Books by Edmund S. Morgan

This comprehensive documentary source book on the Stamp Act provides a case-study approach to American colonial history and serves as a problems source book on the key event in Anglo-American relations in the 1760s. Morgan has assembled sixty-five crucial documents on all phases of the crisis.

Now available again, this important biography of the early New England intellectual leader was greeted as a "landmark in the history of the American mind" by Clifford K. Shipton when it appeared in 1962. Stiles lived at a critical time - the transition from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, which came suddenly in New England - and because of his position, his influence was great.

An illuminating portrait of the nation's earliest-and most passionate-advocate for the total separation of church and state.

"The best explanation that I have seen for our distinctive combination of faith, hope and naivete concerning the governmental process." -Michael Kamman, Washington Post

More than any other single man, George Washington was responsible for bringing success to the American Revolution. But because of the heroic image in which we have cast him and which already enveloped him in this own lifetime, Washington is and was a hard man to know.

Part of the "Chicago History of American Civilization" series, which provides a nuanced and vibrant portrait of the United States from its inception through the twentieth century.

"A wise, humane and beautifully written book." -Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal

"Through this great scholarly effort of Yale's Professor Morgan, we now have a unique access to the culture and intellectual life of 18th-century America. We also have for the first time a full biography of a remarkable colonial worthy, one which general readers can enjoy and scholars use with confidence." -Library Journal

The Revolution is fertile ground for the historian's craft, as these essays attest. Edmund S. Morgan discovers in American protests against British taxation an affirmation of rights that the colonists adhered to with surprising consistency, and that guided them ultimately to independence. Then, after a general reassessment of the importance of the Revolution, he moves to a study of it as an intellectual movement, which challenged the best minds of the period to transform their political world. Next, in studying the ethical basis of the Revolution, Morgan traces the shaping of national consciousness by puritanical attitudes toward work and leisure. This leads him to an exploration of the paradoxical relationship between slavery and freedom, and the role their relationship played in the Revolution. Finally, thinking about the Revolution on its anniversary, Morgan looks once again at the Founding Fathers and the innovative daring, admiring most their ability to reject what had hitherto been taken for granted.