From the bestselling author of The Ascent of George Washington comes a brilliantly rendered narrative of the epochal struggle in Congress that culminated in American independence.

One of the most colorful figures in English political history, John Wilkes (1726—97) is remembered as the father of the British free press, a defender of civil and political liberties, and a hero to American colonists. Wilkes's political career was rancorous, involving duels, imprisonments in the Tower of London, and the Massacre of St. George's Fields, in which seven of his supporters were shot to death by government troops. He was equally famous...

"For the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution, the leading historian of the era presents a landmark two-volume edition of the thirty-nine pamphlets charting the course of the political crisis that led to independence. This second volume includes twenty works from the crucial years when the debate turned from issues of representation and consent to the fateful question of where sovereignty would ultimately reside in the British...