Winner of the George Washington Prize
Winner of the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American
History
Winner of the Excellence in American History Book Award
Winner of the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award
**
The paperback edition of the New York Times bestseller that the Wall
Street Journal said** was "chock full of momentous events and
larger-than-life characters."
Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn
and two other superb books about World War II, has long been admired for
his deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative histories. Now he
turns his attention to a new war, and in the initial volume of the
Revolution Trilogy he recounts the first twenty-one months of America's
violent war for independence.
From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at
Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the
ragged Continental Army take on the world's most formidable fighting
force. It is a gripping saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry
Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery;
Nathanael Greene, the blue-eyed bumpkin who becomes a brilliant battle
captain; Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man who proves to be the
wiliest of diplomats; George Washington, the commander in chief who
learns the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost.
The story is also told from the British perspective, making the mortal
conflict between the redcoats and the rebels all the more compelling.
Full of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is
a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and
profound suffering. Rick Atkinson has given stirring new life to the
first act of our country's creation drama.
