Countdown to 250: A Rebel’s Collection of Books, Films, and Podcasts

We are just days into the 250th year of American independence. While the Founders wrote everything down, few people have time for dry lectures or dense textbooks. Most of us prefer to learn through the “entertainment principle”—absorbing history through compelling stories.

My goal as an author is to inspire you to fact-check me. If my novels drive you to the library to uncover the real history, that is a win.

To help you connect with the past, I am launching Countdown to 250: A Rebel’s Collection of Books, Films, and Podcasts. This is a curated, multimedia list of the best historical fiction, nonfiction, and movies I have personally vetted.

Check the list often for weekly updates. Want to know when new recommendations drop? Register for The Cipher Blog email list below.

By the way, these are not listed in order of preference, and the books are linked to Amazon.

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America 250 Books (Nonfiction and Fiction):

1. A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier
2. The Zane Grey Frontier Trilogy
3. The Classic Slave Narratives
4. Chronicles of Border Warfare
5. Through the Howling Wilderness
6. The British Soldier in America
7. Woman’s Life in Colonial Days
8. A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier
9. Through the Fading Darkness
10. Beyond the Fading Darkness
11. Winter’s Ghosts
12. Journal of a Lady of Quality
13. Choosing Sides: Loyalists in Revolutionary America
14. American Indians of the Ohio Country in the 18th Century
15. Crucible of War
16. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
17. To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders
18. The Peopling of British North America
19. Voyagers to the West: The Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution
20. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for American Independence
21. American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People
22. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
23. White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery, and Vengeance
24. The Shawnees and the War for America
25. Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier
26. Dunmore’s New World: The Extraordinary Life of a Royal Governor in Revolutionary America
27. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
28. Revolutionary Summer
29. His Excellency: George Washington
30. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
31. Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams
32. The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents 1773-1783
33. Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-1782
34. The Minutemen and Their World
35. Trans-Allegheny Pioneers: History of the First White Settlements of the Virginia Alleghenies
36. Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America’s Independence
37. War on the Run
38. A Revolutionary People at War
39. Liberty’s First Crisis
40. The Jamestown Adventure
41. Daniel Morgan: An Inexplicable Hero
42. John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy
43. Lion of Liberty: Patrick Henry
44. Lafayette
45. The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, & Endurance in Early America
46. Dunmore’s War: The Last Conflict of the Colonial Era
47. The Radicalism of the American Revolution
48. The Idea of America
49. Revolutionary Characters
50. Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

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Films and Streaming Series:

1. John Adams (2008)
2. TURN: Washington’s Spies (2014–2017)
3. Sons of Liberty (2015)
4. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
5. The Patriot (2000)
6. The Crossing (2000)
7. The New World (2005)
8. 1776 (1972)
9. The Witch (2015)
10. Sleepy Hollow (1999)

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Podcasts:

Coming soon. Frankly, I haven’t come across any focused on the American Revolution worth recommending. If you know of any, please pass them along.

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Bonus: Official Documents

The Declaration of Independence

The Mayflower Compact

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense

The Articles of Confederation

The Constitution

The Bill of Rights

Washington’s Farewell Address

The Northwest Ordinance

Federalist Number 10

Federalist Number 51

Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

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