Saturday Good Reads – July 4, 2026 – America 250

Fifty years ago, my wife and I were living in Houston when the Bicentennial celebration occurred. The memories that lasted are the tall ships sailing into New York City, the fireworks at Houston’s Northwest Plaza on July 4 (the the resulting traffic jam when it was over), and Bicentennial Minutes.  

Bicentennial Minutes were hosted by CBS. As the name implied, they were one-minute history lessons, each with a different celebrity narrator. Speakers included movie stars like Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas, and Ed Asner; Alfred Hitchcock; Kukla, Fran, & Ollie; Walter Cronkite; and scores more. Reportedly, CBS initially hated the idea, but it turned into one of the most popular events during the Bicentennial.

 

Somewhat controversial was the sponsor, Shell Oil Company. First, it was an oil company, when many were howling for oil companies to be broken up. Second, it was owned by the Royal Dutch Group, a foreign company, no less, half-owned by British interests. Ultimately, people decided to sit back and enjoy the minutes.

 

I was working at Shell Oil at the time. And my job was reading, researching, and writing about the effort to “break up Big Oil.” Eventually, the issue died, and I moved into the speechwriting group. But I think I’ll always connect those Bicentennial memories with “breaking up Big Oil.”

 

And now, it’s 50 years later, and it’s the 250^th birthday. Happy birthday to all of us! And to the men and women of 1776 who had the courage to make it happen!

 

The Declaration of Independence in its moment

 

The Anticipation of Late June 1776 – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Declaration of Independence: A Transcription – National Archives.

 

Declarations Before THE Declaration of Independence – Ray Rphaeol at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Viking word hidden in the Declaration of Independence – Sophie Hardach at BBC.

 

The Man Who Argued Against Independence – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

July 2, 1776: “the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America: – Kevin Pawlak at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The Inner American Revolution – Stephen Mansfield at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

 

Scotland and the Birth of the United States – S. Donald Fortson at Ligonier.

 

On the Semiquincentennial – Spitalfields Life.

 

The War for Independence

 

Monmouth: Longest Battle of the American Revolution – Eric Niderost at Warfare History Network.

 

The Britons who supported the War of Independence – Tom Cutterham at The Conversation.

 

How a tiny Caribbean island made American independence possible – R. Grant Gilmore III at The Conversation.

 

General Washington and the Other Declaration of 1776 – Charlton Allen at American Thinker.

 

The America 250 Celebration

 

Congress dedicates national time capsule ahead of America’s 250^th anniversary – Associated Press via PBS.

 

World Monuments Fund spotlights ten heritage sites for the US’ 250^th – Elena Goukassoan at The Art Newspaper.

 

A History of America’s Milestones: Celebrating Independence – Ron Faucheux at Real Clear History.

 

The Declaration in American History

 

Why Americans Once Held Separate Fourth of July Celebrations – Tim Ott at History.

 

At America 250, Remember the 2 Presidents Who Saved the Declaration – Janice Rogers Brown at Coolidge Review.

 

When Independence Hall Was Almost Demolished – Elizabeth Yuko at History.

 

Assessments of the Declaration

 

Liberty, War, and Sovereignty in American States System: The Declaration of Independence at 250 – Robbie Totten at Isonomia Quarterly.

 

America 250 Forum, Day 1: The Idea of America, Day 2: The Weight of History; Day 3: Giving Thanks as American Christians – Mere Orthodoxy.

 

250 Years of Faith: The Story of Christianity in America – Thomas Kidd at Desiring God.

 

The Radical, Conservative Experiment That Is America – David Deavel at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Our Inalienable Declaration – Jack Butler at The Wall Street Journal (story unlocked). 

 

The Heroes of 1776 – Neil Gorsuch and Janet Nitze at The Free Press.

 

The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty by Bradley Birzer – Faith, Fiction, Friends.

 

Why I Wrote Finding the Founding – Casey Spinks at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

The Declaration at 250 – 28 thinkers at Modern Age.

 

Music of the Declaration – Henry Long at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

People Speak

 

The Country I Would Still Die For – Ncholas Dockery at The Free Press.

 

The Summer I Turned Patriot – Josh Kaplan at The Free Press.

 

If Jesus Founded a Nation – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

America 250 and Poetry

 

Bradford Skow and American Independence in Verse – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

What America Was Meant to Be – poem by Mike Johansson at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Philip Freneau: Poet of the American Revolution – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

The First of Modern Nations and An Errand into the Wilderness – poems by James Matthew Wilson at Word on Fire.

 

“Old Ironsides,” poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Paul Revere’s Ride – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

 

The Declaration of Independence – read by Max McLean

Painting: The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, oil on canvas (1818)  by John Trumbull (1756-1843), U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

Philip Freneau: Poet of the American Revolution

We learned this back in elementary school. If one poet’s name sits atop the poetry of the American Revolution, that name is Philip Freneau (1752-1832). And like the new nation he was part of, he kept re-inventing himself.  

The Freneau family came from La Chappelle, France, in the Ardennes Forst and near the current Belgian border. The family was Huguenot, not exactly the best faith option in Catholic France. In 1707, Andre Freneau emigrated to New York in America and became part of the Huguenot colony there. He married and had five children. One of his sons, Pierre, became part of the family business married in 1748. His oldest child was born in 1752 and named Philip. Ten years later, the well-to-do family moved to New Jersey, although Philip remained in boarding school in New York. In 1768, aged 16, the boy entered Princeton University, set upon becoming a minister.

 

At Princeton, however, Pilip discovered writing. He’d read widely in the English poets and Latin classics, and he was already composing poetry. In his class at Princeton was a young man who became a lifelong friend – James Madison. Freneau, Madison, and others were beginning to get up in the spirit of the times, and it was an anti-British, increasingly independent spirit. (In 1770, the senior class voted to wear only clothes of American manufacture for commencement.)

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Illustration: Philip Freneau.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Dust – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Metastatic – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

Orphan Lamb – poem by David Whyte.

 

Kurt Vonnegut’s Ambivalent War on AI – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

“Chicago,” poem by Carl Sandburg – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“The Battle of Blenheim,” poem by Robert Southey – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Reading Moby Dick – Chris Arnade Walks the World.

“The Declaration of Independence” by Bradley Birzer

I was on a multi-day business trip to Washington, D.C. I had a free afternoon, so I walked from the hotel to the National Gallery on the Mall. And then, for reason or reasons unknown, I walked across the street to the National Archives. And there it was – the original Declaration of Independence. 

 

Drafted mostly if not entirely by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is to America what the Magna Carta is to England. The statement of beliefs. The citation of grievances against an unjust ruler (also an English king, no less). The signatures.  

As Bradley Birzer points out in The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty, the Declaration is all these things. And it is more. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Prudence vs. Fanaticism: On the American & French Revolutions – Russell Kirk at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The art of translation: On Les Fleurs du mal, by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Richard Howard – David Paul at The New Criterion.

 

Short Story, Deep Treasures: Biblical Allusion in “Gift of the Magi” – John Savoie at Literary Matters.

“The Atlas of Independence” by Chris Mackowski

If I had a mental image of John Adams, it was of a rather dour individual who bridged the presidencies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, whom my history teachers in high school and college seemed to find much more interesting. 

Then came the 2008 miniseries John Adams, with Paul Giamatti in the title role and Laura Linney as his wife Abigail. I almost skipped it, but we decided to watch it. And I began to understand that my teachers and I had all missed the boat on this major figure of the American Revolution.  I sought out some biographies and histories, and I discovered my understanding of the second U.S. president was seriously misguided.

 

It was with that improving understanding that I began reading Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution by Chris Mackowski. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Bob Dylan: ‘I’m a Religious Person’ Who Reads Scripture Daily – Stephanie Martin at Church Leaders.

 

Britain’s Great Self-Loathing Crusade – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

Ghosts in the Field – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

Saturday Good Reads - April 26, 2025

Something strange is afoot – Gen Z is flocking to church. It’ not only happening in the United States (where the return appears to be led by young men) but also in Britain, where it’s being called “a very British revival.” 

The outcome of the American Revolution was a very near thing, and there were many times when all looked lost and the British would regain control. But things happened; in some cases, they were very small things. Sam Negus at Law & Liberty looks at the “Contingency in the American Revolution.”

 

For centuries, scholars have believed that William Shakespeare abandoned his family in Stratford while he went to seek fame and fortune in London. New evidence suggests that this isn’t really what happened, and that Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway had a much stronger and better marriage that previously believed. 

 

Faith

 

Bid Adieu. Machen was right – Nathan Eshelman at Gentle Reformation.

 

Amid the chaos and the night of man: From The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

What We Miss When We Skip the Prophets – Ryan Higginbottom at Knowable Word.

News Media

 

A new media order is emerging: Journalism isn’t dead. It’s on Substack – Hamish McKenzie at The Substack Pot.

 

Poetry

 

“The Listeners,” poem by Walter de la Mare – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

John Neihardt’s Epic ‘Cycle of the West’: Uncovering America’s Forgotten Poet, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 – Andrew Benson Brown at Classical Poets Live.

 

A Widower – Amit Majmudar at Literary Matters.

 

Veils – Tyler Rogness at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

“Channel Firing,” poem by Thomas Hardy – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

“Re-reading Katherine Mansfield’s Bliss and Other Stories,” poem by Douglas Dunn – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

American Stuff

 

Don Sickles Returns to Gettysburg for the Last Time – John L. Hopkins at Emerging Civil War.

 

Writing and Literature

 

The Art of Adventure Covers – Frank Theodat at Pulp, Pipe, & Poetry.

 

America 250

 

Stolen or Gone Missing? – Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Paul Revere Wasn’t the Only Midnight Rider Who Dashed in the Darkness to Warn the Patriots That the British Were Coming – Ellen Wexler at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Community Life

 

Garden with Children – Reid Makowsky at Front Porch Republic.

 

Culture

 

Princeton’s War on Civil Rights – Christopher Rufo.

 

Desert Road – Casting Crowns

Painting: Man with Moustache Reading, oil on canvas (1930s) by Louise Alix (1888-1980). 

Some Wednesday Readings

  

The Beauty Around Me – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

The Forgotten Battle of Menotomy – Michael Ruderman at American Heritage.

 

Freedom is still the Revolutionary War’s legacy – Michael Aulin at The Spectator.

 

John Adams and the Rubicon of Lexington / Concord – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

A Phone that Does Not Ring – David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.

 

250^th Anniversary: Benedict Arnold’s War Begins, April 22, 1775 – Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Agrippa Hull: A Revolutionary Story – Talya Leodari at The Journal of the American Revolution. 

Drama at the Old North Bridge - Rick Atkinson at American Heritage.

Painting: John Adams about 1775. 

 

Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride”: Creaing a National Legend

It’s a tossup as to whether the most famous or best-known poem in America is Clement Moore”s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (aka “Twas the Night Before Christmas”), first published in 1823, or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride,” (1860). My money is on “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Whole generations of schoolchildren, myself included, grew up reciting the lines that begin “Listen my children, and you shall hear…” 

Both poems are no longer taught in most of America’s public schools, but I know from my grandsons’ experience that they are taught (with great gusto) in many private schools, especially those offering a classical education. “Paul Revere’s Ride” commemorates one of the significant of the beginning of the American Revolution, a horseback ride at night to warn the cities of Lexington and Concord that British troops were coming.

 

That ride occurred 250 years ago tomorrow.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Artwork: the illustration accompanying the poem in the January 1861 edition of The Atlantic Magazine.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“If You Had Been Here,” a poem for Holy Week – Story Warren.

 

On publishing Charlotte Bronte’s miniature book of poems for the first time – R.B. Russell at Literary Hub.

 

The Classical Girl’s Top 10 Holy Works for Holy Week – Terez Rose at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Sweet Tea and Sacraments: Flannery O’Connor, the American South, and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition – Raleigh Adams at Front Porch Republic.

 

“Sing a Song of Sixpence,” poem by Mother Goose – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Some Monday Readings

                 

10 Things Right Now – Samuel James at Digital Liturgies. 

‘I Was Four Feet Away When I Heard the Bullets’ – Salena Zito at The Free Press.

 

The Slow-Motion Assassination – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

Things Worth Remembering: How to Respond to an Almost-Assassination – Douglas Murray at Three Free.

 

The School of Civic Leadership Looks to Protect the American Experiment – Mike Sabo at Real Clear Politics.

 

The National Archives Needs Your Help in Transcribing Revolutionary War Records – Blake Stilwell at Military.com. 

 

How Culture Got Stupid – Kat Rosenfeld at The Free Press.

 

History’s Footnotes – Matthew Wills at JSTOR Daily.

 

Three Thoughts on the NYT Top 100 – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Graffiti at the Tower of London – Spitalfields Life.

Photograph: The White Tower at the Tower of London.

Fourth of July: "Concord Hymn" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Martin Van Buren had recently been inaugurated as president, the day after President Andrew Jackson and Congress recognized the new Republic of Texas. The Whigs were establishing themselves as a new political party, having held their first national convention in Pennsylvania. Business conditions were unsettled, following the Panic of 1837 in which numerous banks had failed.  

On July 4, 1837, a large group gathered in Concord, Massachusetts to commemorate the Battle of Lexington and Concordin 1775, the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the American Revolution (1775-1783). The Concord Battle Monument Committee has commissioned a stone obelisk for the occasion, along with a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882). The monument was unveiled, and Emerson read his poem, originally entitled “Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument.”

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Illustration: Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1830s.

Some Tuesday Readings

How well do you know your American History? – CNN Independence Day Quiz.

 

Down with Diversocracy – and Meritocracy – Sohrab Ahmari at Compact Magazine.

 

Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal – Appalachian Sketches, Gloriae Dei Cantores.

 

Adams Mountain – poem by Leland James at Society of Classical Poets.

Books for Celebrating America, the Beautiful (for children) – Kelly Keller at Story Warren.

 

Through the Modern Camera Lens: Gettysburg Battlefield – Chris Heisey at Emerging Civil War.

 

Close Reading the Declaration of Independence – Peggy Rosenthal at Slant Books.

"Power and Liberty" by Gordon Wood

Gordon Wood is the Alva Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. He’s won numerous prizes for his books, including the Pulitzer Prize for History for The Radicalism of the American Revolution. His area of focus is the American Revolution and the period of the early American republic.  

Wood is a good author to read in a time when so many calls are arising from the left-of-center to change the Supreme Court, do away with the Electoral College, repeal various constitutional amendments, and perhaps even rewrite the Constitution. His newest work, Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution, tells the story of how the U.S. Constitution was actually born in the throes of the revolution itself, years before the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

 

Before the U.S. Constitution existed, the idea of written constitutions, especially in English history, was largely associated with governments. In other words, constitutions were all about governments and how they functioned along with customs, traditions, and common law. It was different in America. “By the end of the Revolutionary era,” he writes, “Americans had come to view a constitution as no part of government at all. It was a written document distinct from n superior to all the operations of government.” Instead, it functioned like a Bible, embodying the principles of government to be sure, but principles derived from the people.

 

Wood explains how this happened. Before the American Revolution, a debate emerged between America and Britain, which eventually became a debate with the British king. That debate culminated in the Declaration of Independence, which Wood calls “the most important document in American history.”

 

Gordon Wood

Constitutionalism was thriving during the Revolutionary War. The states were experimenting with a number of different approaches, and if something didn’t work, something else was tried. That constitutional ferment was reflected in the articles of Confederation, and it continued into the Constitutional Convention period. 

 

The slavery debate at the Constitutional Convention happened in the context of the debate over representation for both large and small states. Slavery was more prevalent in the southern states, but every state had its slaves. Wood includes a reminder that slavery had existed for thousands of years, but the idea of ending it received a major push during the revolution and early republic. He also points to the emergence of the judiciary as a separate branch of government, instead of an extension of royal or executive officers. And this period also inaugurated what was one of the most radical innovations ever – the demarcation between the public and the private. The distinctions between these two spheres did not exist at the time the Constitution was approved and implemented.

 

Power and Liberty is a relatively short (and highly readable) book – 188 pages of text, excluding notes, bibliography, and index. But it is an important book, important in that it helps explain what was happening at the time the Constitution was written, the vital developments leading up to it, and how it changed American (and the world) forever.

Poets and Poems: Andrew Benson Brown and “Legends of Liberty”

Andrew Benson Brown has taken some of the signature events of the early American Revolution and turned them into an epic poem. But there’s a twist.  

This is an American Revolution that sounds familiar, vaguely, but isn’t quite what you’ll find in the history books. Thomas Jefferson is sent to Hell for some unknown sin and is guided through the underworld by none other than Dante. Paul Revere makes his famous ride on the fastest horse on earth. It’s not just the short heard round the world at Lexington and Concord; it may have fired by a British soldier and any of a number of other claimants. And if at first you think the story of farmer Sam Whittemore is made up, well, think again! I have a new octogenarian hero.

 

Brown’s Legends of Liberty: Volume One isn’t like any historical poem you’ve read before. A combination of rhymed poetry and illustrations (with stanzas printed right on many of them), this is part epic, part mock-epic, part historical fact, part historical invention, a strong dollop of the tongue-in-cheek, and all sheer fun. And underneath it all, Brown seems to be making a serious point.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

“Revolution” by Peter Ackroyd

From 1688 to 1815 occurred some of the most tumultuous events that shaped the modern world. James IIwas replaced on the English throne by William and Mary; France under Louis XIV became the pivot of war in Europe; The Seven Years War (aka the French and Indian War) reshaped the political map of North America; the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution; the American Revolution; the French Revolution and Reign of Terror; and the Napoleonic era, finding ending in the fields outside Brussels. 

In Revolution: The History of England from the Battle of the Boyne to the Battle of Waterloo, British author Peter Ackroyddepicts the story of monarchs, war, societal upheavals, and cultural changes. Continuing his series on the history of England (this is volume 4), he tells a riveting story.

The religious wars that started with the Reformation in the early 1500s finally played themselves out in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James II was a bit too Catholic and finds himself replaced by William of Orange and James’s daughter Mary. Childless, they’re succeeded by Queen Anne, but she, too, dies without an heir (only one child survived infancy and he died young). Parliament turned to a distant relation in the German state of Hanover,George I (1660-1727), who was staunchly Protestant. But if there is a central figure in this period, it is George III (1738-1820), the nemesis of the American colonists, and the monarch whose bouts with madness caused no end of reactions and responses.

Ackroyd pays close attention to the significant events affecting business and industry during the period. The Bank of England was founded. Freedom of the press emerged in England less as a declared right and more because Parliament forgot to extend a law regulating printing (Ackroyd notes the almost immediate effect of an explosion of news sheets had on politics). The Industrial Revolution emerged as a significant factor in society, including the manufacture of Josiah Wedgewood’s plates, mechanized spinning of textiles, and the steam engine. 

Social justice issues, like the call for the abolition of slavery, began to be sounded by people like William Wilberforce and Hannah More. And this was the era of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s plays, Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, the speeches of Edmund Burke, and the writings of Adam Smith. And in the 1790s, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge helped give birth to Romanticism.

Peter Ackroyd

Political and economic changes led to almost ongoing social unrest. The upper classes in England feared (and understandably so) the spread of the French Revolution, but crop failures, economic downturns, political changes, and even rumors fueled riots and protests.

Ackroyd points out that the American Revolution was the first political change that wasn’t about installing a new monarch or a new church, inspiring many revolutions and political changes that followed.

The author is one of Britain’s most prolific popular historians. In addition to his history of England series, he’s also written biographies of Charles Dickens and the artist J.M.W. Turner, among several others; a history of London (and a history of London beneath the streets); and many other works.

The period from 1688 to 1815 was exciting and momentous, and Ackroyd’s Revolution brings it fully to life.

Related:

My review of Rebellion by Peter Ackroyd.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors.

Reading Peter Ackroyd.

A Revolt over a Prayer Book.

Top illustration: George III’s coronation portrait (1762) by Allan Ramsay.