The marquis de Lafayette and the comte de Rochambeau were each vital to the fight for American independence, but they took different paths to their service in the American war. Unlike most other French officers, Lafayette did not seek a position in the American army to bolster his military resume or to simply follow his […]
Winston Churchill called the Seven Years’ War the first world war. Yet, Americans typically think of this conflict only in terms of its North American theater, where it is most often referred to as the French and Indian War. The Seven Years’ War was a much bigger conflict involving world powers France, England, Prussia, Hanover […]
The ratification of the Constitution is usually treated as an afterthought. There are dozens of books about the Federal Convention, and history textbooks conventionally deal with debates in the convention, but few studies deal with the critical process through which the Constitution was ratified by the states in a succession of state conventions. Ratification, as […]