2008
First Published
3.58
Average Rating
338
Number of Pages
Friends of Liberty tells the remarkable story of three men whose lives were braided together by issues of liberty and race that fueled revolutions across two continents. Thomas Jefferson wrote the founding documents of the United States. Thaddeus Kosciuszko was a hero of the American Revolution and later led a spectacular but failed uprising in Poland, his homeland. Agrippa Hull, a freeborn black New Englander, volunteered at eighteen to join the Continental Army. During the Revolution, Hull served Kosciuszko as an orderly, and the two became fast friends. Kosciuszko's abhorrence of bondage shaped histhinking about the oppression in his own land. When Kosciuszko returned to America in the 1790s, bearing the wounds of his own failed revolution, he and Jefferson forged an intense friendship based on their shared dreams for the global expansion of human freedom. They sealed their bond with a blood compact whereby Jefferson would liberate his slaves upon Kosciuszko's death. But Jefferson died without fulfilling the promise he had made to Kosciuszko-and to a fledgling nation founded on the principle of liberty and justice for all.
Avg Rating
3.58
Number of Ratings
78
5 STARS
19%
4 STARS
37%
3 STARS
29%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
4%
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Author
Gary B. Nash
Author · 14 books
Gary B. Nash received his B. A. from Princeton University in 1955 and his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1964. He earned the position of Director of the National Center for History in the Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught colonial and revolutionary American history since 1974. Nash has been the Director of the National Center for History in the Schools since 1994 and co-chaired the National History Standards Project from 1992-1996. His past positions include: Dean of Undergraduate and Intercollege Curricular Development, University of California, Los Angeles; President, Organization of American Historians; Dean, Council on Educational Development, University of California, Los Angeles; Assistant Professor, Department of History, Princeton University. He has received research grants from the University of California Institute of Humanities and American Philosophical Society and fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial and American Council of Learned Society. Nash was elected member of American Antiquarian Society, Society of American Historians, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as winning the University of California Distinguished Emeriti Award and the Defense of Academic Freedom Award, from the National Council for Social Studies. Nash is the Founding Member and has been on the Board of Trustees of the National Council for History Education since 1990 and was Vice-Chair in 1992. He was also President of the Organization of American Historians, from 1994-95, the Primary History Consultant for the Schlessinger Production series in United States History, from 1996-97, he was on the University of California Bicentennial Committee, from 1975-76 and was an Historical Consultant and Writer for "Lights of Liberty," sound and light tour, Philadelphia, PA, in 1999.
