With her conversational direct style, Elizabeth Richards helps distant events come alive and demonstrates the connection between the ideals and practices of our Founders and the liberties we enjoy today. As a primer of crucial events, it is a winner. -Dr. Charlie Self Professor of Church History Assemblies of God Theological Seminary Senior Advisor, The Acton Institute for Religion and Liberty This is a book I wish I could have assigned to my students when I was teaching US History to high school students. It is highly readable and suitable for students with limited English language skills and even for younger students. The author begins by describing the competing efforts of Britain, France, and Spain to establish footholds in America and how Britain gained greater domination than the other countries. (see book 1, the Founding of a Nation: The Story of the Thirteen Colonies) This book provides depth of detail of this war to achieve independence that I have not seen before: the many battles fought, both won and lost; the geographic extent of the war, from what is now Vermont to Georgia from the Atlantic seaboard to the area that would become Illinois and the enormous cost in Life and treasure. This book gives meaning and substance to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, which we so seldom read, but when we do read it is often with only superficial appreciation of the effort and sacrifice that went into establishing them as the foundation of a new country ---the United States of America. -Alan Wadsworth Retired Social Studies teacher and school administrator