1776 A Brief Look Back

1776 takes a look at some of the pivotal moments for the Americans for the year. This includes the crossing of the Hudson and the Battle at Trenton.

McCullough does a great job at keeping the story relatively short while mainly focusing on the exciting bits. This is a great book to learn a little about how America survived it’s founding. Only 400ish pages it is highly accessible to a wide audience of people. Non fiction history books can often be drawn out giving an overwhelming amount of information that is relevant but often boring. This book is simple in the fact that it explores George Washington and the struggles he had while assuming his military position.

George Washington Crossing the Delaware

History figures are often seem more than human in some of the things they have accomplished. McCullough does a good job of humanizing Washington by showing you his flaws as well as what made him great. Washington was not the greatest military tactician but he made up with this with his charisma, leadership, and often luck.