Holger Hoock’s Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth reveals the less glamorous side of our nation’s inception with accounts of mass murder, disease, and rape. Rather than gloss over the gritty details that disrupt our sense of national pride, Hoock begs his readers to consider what has been written out of history.

In Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution, Nathaniel Philbrick unfolds the tragic relationship between two key figures in the founding of a nation and exposes the complex conflicts that forced Americans to question the real threat to their liberties.