
Our First Civil War
Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution
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Narrated by:
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Steve Hendrickson
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By:
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H. W. Brands
About this listen
"A fast-paced, often riveting account of the military and political events leading up to the Declaration of Independence and those that followed during the war ... Brands does his readers a service by reminding them that division, as much as unity, is central to the founding of our nation."—The Washington Post
From best-selling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands comes a gripping narrative of the American Revolution that shows it to be more than a fight against the British: It was also a violent battle among neighbors forced to choose sides, Loyalist or Patriot.
What causes people to forsake their country and take arms against it? What prompts their neighbors, hardly distinguishable in station or success, to defend that country against the rebels? That is the question H. W. Brands answers in his powerful new history of the American Revolution.
George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were the unlikeliest of rebels. Washington in the 1770s stood at the apex of Virginia society. Franklin was more successful still, having risen from humble origins to world fame. John Adams might have seemed a more obvious candidate for rebellion, being of cantankerous temperament. Even so, he revered the law. Yet all three men became rebels against the British Empire that fostered their success.
Others in the same circle of family and friends chose differently. William Franklin might have been expected to join his father, Benjamin, in rebellion but remained loyal to the British. So did Thomas Hutchinson, a royal governor and friend of the Franklins, and Joseph Galloway, an early challenger to the Crown. They soon heard themselves denounced as traitors—for not having betrayed the country where they grew up. Native Americans and the enslaved were also forced to choose sides as civil war broke out around them.
After the Revolution, the Patriots were cast as heroes and founding fathers while the Loyalists were relegated to bit parts best forgotten. Our First Civil War reminds us that before America could win its revolution against Britain, the Patriots had to win a bitter civil war against family, neighbors, and friends.
©2021 H. W. Brands (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
A History Book Club Main Selection
“Americans tend to forget that we have always been at war with one another—even in the beginning. In this splendid new book, H. W. Brands tells the story of the American Revolution as it really unfolded—as a civil war between colonial patriots and those loyal to the British Crown and Parliament. Division, Brands reminds us, is as American as unity.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope
“H.W. Brands’ Our First Civil War is a sleek, riveting one-volume account of the American Revolution that speaks compellingly to our current age of division and discord. A bravura performance by one of our great historical storytellers.”—Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy and In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award
“Was the Revolution truly a ‘civil war’ at heart? And what was the role of the many tens of thousands of everyday Loyalists whose presence made it potentially so? . . . Brands provides a brisk, engaging narrative history of the Revolution itself [and] ensure[s] that an oft-overlooked part of the American Revolution receives its due.”—The Wall Street Journal
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By: H. W. Brands
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Dreams of El Dorado
- A History of the American West
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Matt Kugler
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands tells the thrilling, panoramic story of the settling of the American West. He takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. He shows how the migrants' dreams drove them to feats of courage and perseverance that put their stay-at-home cousins to shame - and how those same dreams also drove them to outrageous acts of violence against indigenous peoples and one another. El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East.
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Dreadful narration
- By Fredmo on 12-09-19
By: H. W. Brands
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America First
- Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands narrates the fierce debate over America's role in the world in the runup to World War II through its two most important figures: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who advocated intervention, and his isolationist nemesis, aviator and popular hero Charles Lindbergh.
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Throw back in time
- By jimmie l brown on 04-24-25
By: H. W. Brands
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The Man Who Saved the Union
- Ulysses Grant in War and Peace
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 27 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Ulysses Grant rose from obscurity to discover he had a genius for battle, and he propelled the Union to victory in the Civil War. After Abraham Lincoln's assassination and the disastrous brief presidency of Andrew Johnson, America turned to Grant again to unite the country, this time as president. In Brands' sweeping, majestic full biography, Grant emerges as a heroic figure who was fearlessly on the side of right.
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Underrated hero
- By Tad Davis on 12-22-12
By: H. W. Brands
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The Last Campaign
- Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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William Tecumseh Sherman and Geronimo were keen strategists and bold soldiers, ruthless with their enemies. Over the course of the 1870s and 1880s these two war chiefs would confront each other in the final battle for what the American West would be: a sparsely settled, wild home where Indian tribes could thrive, or a densely populated extension of the America to the east of the Mississippi.
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Outstanding Unbiased Native American History
- By Paul W. Brazis on 11-07-22
By: H. W. Brands
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Traitor to His Class
- The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 37 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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A sweeping, magisterial biography of the man generally considered the greatest president of the 20th century, admired by Democrats and Republicans alike. Traitor to His Class sheds new light on FDR's formative years; his remarkable willingness to champion the concerns of the poor and disenfranchised; and his combination of political genius, firm leadership, and matchless diplomacy in saving democracy during the Great Depression and the American cause of freedom in World War II.
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Talented writer and narrator, but too biased/long
- By todd on 01-24-20
By: H. W. Brands
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Andrew Jackson
- His Life and Times
- By: H.W. Brands
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 25 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The extraordinary story of Andrew Jackson—the colorful, dynamic, and forceful president who ushered in the Age of Democracy and set a still young America on its path to greatness—told by the bestselling author of The First American.
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Very Thorough
- By Eric on 02-07-06
By: H.W. Brands
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Reagan
- The Life
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 31 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Ronald Reagan today is a conservative icon, celebrated for transforming the American domestic agenda and playing a crucial part in ending communism in the Soviet Union. In his masterful new biography, H. W. Brands argues that Reagan, along with FDR, was the most consequential president of the 20th century. Reagan took office at a time when the public sector, after a half century of New Deal liberalism, was widely perceived as bloated and inefficient, an impediment to personal liberty.
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Very little about Reagan
- By Jack Merritt on 07-30-15
By: H. W. Brands
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Lone Star Nation
- How a Ragged Army of Courageous Volunteers Won the Battle for Texas Independence
- By: H.W. Brands
- Narrated by: Don Leslie
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Lone Star Nation is the gripping story of Texas' precarious journey to statehood, from its early colonization in the 1820s to the shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad by the Mexican army, from its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches to its day of liberation as an upstart republic.
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Texas: From Spanish colony to statehood
- By Brian Shivers on 04-06-05
By: H.W. Brands
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The Modern Scholar
- The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
- By: Professor H.W. Brands
- Narrated by: H.W. Brands
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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This course examines the life of Benjamin Franklin and his influence on both American and world history. He remains the model of the American thinker - a man who was interested in nearly everything, and who pursued those interests with an admirable and contagious passion. To study Franklin's life is to learn not only the history of a single man, but to understand some of the most monumental changes in all of human history.
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Love it
- By Holly on 02-20-16
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The Cause
- The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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George Washington claimed that anyone who attempted to provide an accurate account of the war for independence would be accused of writing fiction. At the time, no one called it the “American Revolution”: Former colonists still regarded themselves as Virginians or Pennsylvanians, not Americans, while John Adams insisted that the British were the real revolutionaries, for attempting to impose radical change without their colonists’ consent. With The Cause, Ellis takes a fresh look at the events between 1773 and 1783.
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Modest history primer, wished for more substance
- By Buretto on 10-21-21
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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The Age of Gold
- The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream
- By: H.W. Brands
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill on the American River, it completely transformed the territory of California. Hundreds of thousands of people sped to California by any means possible, and small cities sprung up to service their needs as they sought the precious metal. By 1850, California had become a state; it had also become a symbol of where the nation was going.
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Very Enjoyable
- By Claire on 01-15-04
By: H.W. Brands
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The Radicalism of the American Revolution
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Grand in scope, rigorous in its arguments, and elegantly synthesizing 30 years of scholarship, Gordon S. Wood's Pulitzer Prize–winning book analyzes the social, political, and economic consequences of 1776. In The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Wood depicts not just a break with England, but the rejection of an entire way of life: of a society with feudal dependencies, a politics of patronage, and a world view in which people were divided between the nobility and "the Herd."
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Changed the Way I Think
- By Cynthia on 01-04-14
By: Gordon S. Wood
What listeners say about Our First Civil War
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- S Little
- 01-28-23
An American history where the people and places come alive.
Although I’ve read and listened to many historical accounts of the American revolution, Brands writing style captivates the imagination and brings the characters to life. He brings the saga to new heights by including the heroic founding fathers, and the British but more importantly the Native Americans and the Slaves. I highly recommended this book who wants a more balanced understanding of our first civil war.
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- Nathan A Cummins
- 08-15-22
Good Overview from French/Indian War thru Revolutionary
I found this book well done and kept my interest throughout.
I was expecting it to be a bit more of an assessment of loyalist v patriot culture of the period, but instead it was only telling the common narratives & stories of the era in chronological order focusing largely on Washington & Franklin’s contributions. Having previously read Washington & Franklin biographies much of this was a more shallow overview.
That being said, I would still recommend as I enjoyed the authors style and he did a great job of entertaining the reader through the historical account
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- Gregory Stark
- 09-07-23
Not as specific as the title implies
As someone who can’t get enough American revolutionary history, this book was very enjoyable, It turns out that trying to focus on the divide between patriots and loyalists becomes not too much more than a general history of the political and military events of ~1770 to 1787. There is some special attention paid to the plight of loyalists like William Franklin and the infamous turncoat Benedict Arnold, which is what justifies the title. Other than that, a good general overview drawing on many letters of personal correspondence between the important people of the day, complimenting well other more narrowly focused books on the era.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-14-22
wonderful
loved it our struggle for freedom. Expertly Delineated. well done. good job. 👍 👍
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- Carl Singerman
- 04-12-24
A must read for anyone interested in American history!
This was by far the most thorough, comprehensive, and authentic account of events leading up to, during, and after the American revolution. I would say that this book is a must for anyone interested in American history in general and history of the American Revolution in particular. Bravo to the author!
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- EmilyK
- 01-18-25
Excellent early American stories
I thought this was an excellent set of stories about our early American history. It was well written and narrated, and it was hard to put down. Highly recommended.
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- R. John
- 05-07-22
Not what title suggests
This was supposed to be about the war between patriots and loyalists, but it is only about that 10% of the time. The rest is a good narrative of the overall war and diplomacy.
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2 people found this helpful
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- K. Lilja-King
- 10-26-22
New Informative History
Assuming the veracity of the facts, the author provides new interpretation of the Revolution. Which adds more depth to the founders" perspectives and personalities. An enjoyable listen.
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- freeman
- 09-21-23
great
loved it great author awesome awesomeness and awesomeness and awesomeness are very good and very good and awesomeness
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- William A.
- 05-20-23
Great
I am a member of the NATIONAL SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. This book was excellent.
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2 people found this helpful