McCullough also provides detail to make the war come alive for readers: to bring the events that took place to life rather than offer a typically dull and two-dimensional account like most textbooks do. The author is adept at providing a well-researched and reliable history of the War of Independence without becoming bogged down by academic jargon. 1776 is neither like a textbook, nor like a scholarly tome. The subject matter is of course mostly of interest to American readers, who will take great pride in reading the courageous tales of individuals and collective groups who fought for the principles upon which the nation was founded. Forging a new nation was and still is no small feat. Even though Great Britain was no tyrannical power, the Crown did represent for the colonies an outmoded form of governance that needed to be dealt a real and symbolic blow. Idealism aside, the events that took place that fateful year also transformed...

The British Empire was dealt a serious blow. Although the United States would remain a backwater for over a hundred years, it would some day become a global superpower that surpassed the British Empire.
Remarkably thorough for a book marketed at a general, rather than a scholarly, audience, 1776 still deserves a place on any serious historian's bookshelf. The work is substantiated by references and primary source material. If only to introduce readers to the subject matter without bogging them down with too much academic jargon, professors should include McCullough's work as part of an American history canon. 1776 at times seems like a tedious play-by-play and yet it includes sufficient color commentary to make the wartime events pop off the page. The illustrated version and the plain text version are both worthy of their accolades.

Reference

McCullugh, D. (2005).…