“One-year enlistment had proven problematic since the troops were scheduled to rotate out of the army just when they had begun to internalize the discipline of military service and became reliable s...”

“Ordinary British soldiers harbored several strange preconceptions of their own. Some were surprised that the colonists wore clothes, thinking they would dress like Indians. Other had expected to en...”

“Clinton had displayed his lifelong tendency to make enemies of all his superiors, who never seemed to appreciate his advice as much as he thought it deserved.”

“If you knew how the journey was going to end, you could afford to be patient along the path.”

“They were trying to orchestrate a revolution, which almost by definition generated a sense of collective trauma that defied any semblance of coherence and control. If we wish to rediscover the psyc...”

“If he (John Adams) could not control events, he could at least record them for posterity perhaps the ultimate form of control.”

“While the government is "studying" and funding and organizing its Big Thought, nothing is being done. But the citizen who is willing to Think Little, and, accepting the discipline of that, to go ah...”

“The topics we learn from our four core subjects during our childhood and adolescent stage of our lives help us to understand the norms of common knowledge and take pride of our citizenship.”

“The strategic center of the rebellion was not a place – not New York, Philadelphia, not the Hudson corridor – but the Continental Army itself.”

“If you can't experience the humanity of people who don't look like you, you're not civilized enough to be an officer of the peace.”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

“My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I attack.”