RW250 Roundtable
Book Group
We’ve started a group to discuss books relating to the Revolutionary War. Our first selection was Gordon S. Wood’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Radicalism of the American Revolution, published in 1991 and still considered a classic. Other selections have included:
Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick
1774: The Long Year of Revolution by Mary Beth Norton
Revolutionary Roads: Searching for the War That Made America Independent...and All the Places It Could Have Gone Terribly Wrong by Bob Thompson
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson
The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution by Benjamin L. Carp
Our February 2026 selection is Glorious Lessons, John Trumbull Painter of the American Revolution by Richard Brookhiser.
The discussion will take place on Sunday, February 22 at 4 p.m. on Zoom.
To register click here.
Join us for our next book group discussion as we explore the complicated life and legacy of John Trumbull, whose paintings portrayed both the struggle and the principles that distinguished America's founding moment.
John Trumbull (1756-1843) experienced the American Revolution first hand—he served as aid to George Washington and Horatio Gates, was shot at, and was jailed as a spy. His purpose, he wrote, was “to preserve and diffuse the memory of the noblest series of actions which have ever presented themselves in the history of man.” Although Trumbull’s contemporaries viewed him as a painter, rumbull thought of himself as a historian.
Richard Brookhiser writes that Trumbull “wanted to tell the creation story of America—what it should mean to Americans and what it could mean to the world, and to the future.”
The Roundtable discussion of Glorious Lessons provides a chance to reflect on Trumbull's vision, to review how it endures or doesn’t, and to ponder how each of us crafts our own understanding of the American Revolution.
“Brookhiser weaves a lively, insightful account of the life and iconic work of Americ’s first and foremost visual historian, John Trumbull, whose familiar paintings shape our memory of the Revolution.” —Mark D. Mitchell, Holcombe T. Green Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture, Yale University Art Gallery
Get your copy from a local library or bookseller and plan to join us on February 22.
Below is a recording from our YouTube channel of the book group discussion on Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick, moderated by Dr. Michael Crowder. The discussion took place on January 30, 2022.