We the People Bookshelf

Today the Declaration of Independence is an eloquent treatise on human liberty. At the time of its creation, the Declaration was even more: it was a dangerous political statement involving profound personal risks to its signers and supporters. The Declaration of Independence represented the culmination of years of colonial anger towards British rule. In 1773, a group of colonists threw taxed British tea into Boston Harbor in protest against taxation without representation. From that point on, Americans began the move toward independence.

The wife of one president and mother of another, Abagail Adams was an extraordinary woman in her own right. She experienced the gathering storm of the Revolutionary War and saw the battle of Bunker Hill from a hilltop near her home. The letters written by Abigail Adams to her friends and family bring the Revolutionary period alive, mingling details of everyday life with the momentous events of her time. Abagail Adams is given her own place in history in this award-winning biography, which captures the personality of its subject and the time in which she lived.