Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters

At the beginning of 1776, virtually no one in the colonies was advocating independence: Americans based their grievances against Parliament on their rights as British subjects. By the end of 1776, independence was on every patriot's lips. The many tyrannies of a king had made an independent republic necessary. In Declaring Independence, Edward J. Larson gives us a compact, insightful history of that pivotal year. He traces a narrative arc that runs from the inspiring appeals of Paine's Common Sense in January; through the soaring ideals of midsummer, when the Continental Congress grounded independence in the self-evident truths of human equality and individual rights, and the states wove revolutionary principles of republican government and the rule of law into their new constitutions; to Paine's urgent pleas of December, when "the times that try men's souls" required Americans not "to shrink from the service of their country." Dramatic military clashes also punctuate the year: the British evacuation of Boston forced by the brilliant maneuvers of Washington's Army; the Battle of Long Island, a costly defeat that opened New York to British occupation; and the desperate year-end victory of a threadbare American army at Trenton.

Combined, these ideals and the sacrifices remind us why, on this anniversary and at this political moment, 1776 matters to all of us.

Author: Edward J. Larson
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 11/11/2025
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9781324078975


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 07/01/2025 pg. 11

About the Author
Larson, Edward J.: - Edward J. Larson is the author of many acclaimed works of history, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Scopes trial, Summer for the Gods, and the recent study of liberty and slavery at the founding, American Inheritance. A chaired professor of history and law at Pepperdine University, Larson lives with his family near Los Angeles.