American Chronicles

Book excerpt: Thomas Fleming is best known as a historian of the American Revolution and a biographer of America's founding fathers. But, as the following collection shows, this award-winning writer, whose career spanned more than fifty years, also explored with equal passion and curiosity the history of other, later eras. Spanning the generations from the beginnings of the United States to modern times, these chronicles explore events and decisions that continue to have an impact the nation to this day - from the battles of Jefferson and Hamilton and trials of Aaron Burr and John Brown to the sinking of the Maine and John Kennedy at war to the high cost of unconditional surrender in World War II and what America's presidents say about each other.