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The U.S. at 250: A Semiquincentennial Reading List

June 22, 2026

Books and Journals from Hopkins Press

The United States of America turns 250 years old this July — and in that time a lot of history was made!

To commemorate the occasion, we dove into our catalog to surface a selection of the books and journals published by Hopkins Press exploring milestone events, the origins of the nation, and the historic figures who have played a role in the vibrant and complex history of the U.S.

For your perusing pleasure, we've made all journal articles in this reading list free to read on Project MUSE through the end of July.

Select Books

Cover of "A Full Measure of Freedom: The Black Press at 200" edited by Kim Gallon and E. James West, featuring black-and-white photo of group holding newspapers, bold yellow title.

A Full Measure of Freedom

edited by Kim Gallon and E. James West

$69.95

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Cover of "A Full Measure of Freedom: The Black Press at 200" edited by Kim Gallon and E. James West, featuring black-and-white photo of group holding newspapers, bold yellow title.

A Full Measure of Freedom

edited by Kim Gallon and E. James West

Publication Date: December 8, 2026

Cover of "Political Appetites: The Power of Food in Revolutionary America" by Nancy Siegel, featuring a colonial-era portrait of a seated woman reaching for fruit from a bowl on a table.

Political Appetites

Nancy Siegel

$34.95

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Cover of "Political Appetites: The Power of Food in Revolutionary America" by Nancy Siegel, featuring a colonial-era portrait of a seated woman reaching for fruit from a bowl on a table.

Political Appetites

Nancy Siegel

Publication Date: October 13, 2026

Cover of "The Soul of the House" by Daniel Peart, featuring bold red typography on a cream background above a black-and-white illustration of a chaotic 18th-century House debate scene.

The Soul of the House

Daniel Peart

$89.95

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Cover of "The Soul of the House" by Daniel Peart, featuring bold red typography on a cream background above a black-and-white illustration of a chaotic 18th-century House debate scene.

The Soul of the House

Daniel Peart

Publication Date: August 18, 2026

Cover of "The Cherokee War of 1776" by Kevin Kokomoor, featuring a historical map in dark blue tones with rivers and mountains and orange title text.

The Cherokee War of 1776

Kevin Kokomoor

$34.95

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Cover of "The Cherokee War of 1776" by Kevin Kokomoor, featuring a historical map in dark blue tones with rivers and mountains and orange title text.

The Cherokee War of 1776

Kevin Kokomoor

Publication Date

2026

Cover of "The Contagion of Liberty" by Andrew M. Wehrman, featuring a vintage illustration of a crowd.

The Contagion of Liberty

Andrew M. Wehrman

$24.95

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Cover of "The Contagion of Liberty" by Andrew M. Wehrman, featuring a vintage illustration of a crowd.

The Contagion of Liberty

Andrew M. Wehrman

Publication Date

2026

Cover image of The Founders' Curse

The Founders' Curse

Brook Poston

$64.95

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Cover image of The Founders' Curse

The Founders' Curse

Brook Poston

Publication Date

2024

Cover image of Invoking the Fathers

Invoking the Fathers

Sarah Kornfield

$64.95

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Cover image of Invoking the Fathers

Invoking the Fathers

Sarah Kornfield

Publication Date

2024

Cover image of Vicious and Immoral

Vicious and Immoral

John Gilbert McCurdy

$34.95

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Cover image of Vicious and Immoral

Vicious and Immoral

John Gilbert McCurdy

Publication Date

2024

Cover of American Laughter, American Fury by Eran A. Zelnik, featuring a historical painting with vivid colors.

American Laughter, American Fury

Eran A. Zelnik

$64.95

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Cover of American Laughter, American Fury by Eran A. Zelnik, featuring a historical painting with vivid colors.

American Laughter, American Fury

Eran A. Zelnik

Publication Date

2025

Cover of Philadelphia Merchants on Western Waters by Kim M. Gruenwald, featuring a vintage map background.

Philadelphia Merchants on Western Waters

Kim M. Gruenwald

$64.95

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Cover of Philadelphia Merchants on Western Waters by Kim M. Gruenwald, featuring a vintage map background.

Philadelphia Merchants on Western Waters

Kim M. Gruenwald

Publication Date

2025

Cover image of First Among Men

First Among Men

Maurizio Valsania

$32.00

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Cover image of First Among Men

First Among Men

Maurizio Valsania

Publication Date

2022

Cover image of Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of Colonial South Carolina

Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of Colonial South Carolina

D. Andrew Johnson

$54.95

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Cover image of Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of Colonial South Carolina

Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of Colonial South Carolina

D. Andrew Johnson

Publication Date

2024

Cover image of Constitutional Inquisitors

Constitutional Inquisitors

Scott Ingram

$64.95

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Cover image of Constitutional Inquisitors

Constitutional Inquisitors

Scott Ingram

Publication Date

2023

Cover image of Misinformation Nation

Misinformation Nation

Jordan E. Taylor

$45.95

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Cover image of Misinformation Nation

Misinformation Nation

Jordan E. Taylor

Publication Date

2022

Cover image of Longing for Connection

Longing for Connection

Andrew Burstein

$34.95

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Cover image of Longing for Connection

Longing for Connection

Andrew Burstein

Publication Date

2024

Cover of "The Novel and the Blank" by Matthew P. Brown, featuring aged beige background with black text.

The Novel and the Blank

Matthew P. Brown

$64.95

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Cover of "The Novel and the Blank" by Matthew P. Brown, featuring aged beige background with black text.

The Novel and the Blank

Matthew P. Brown

Publication Date

2025

The Birthday Party No One Wants: America at 250

Samuel Moyn

The Yale Review

Volume 114, Number 2, Summer 2026

Special Issue: Origins of Biopolitics in the Americas
Edited by Greta LaFleur and Kyla Schuller

American Quarterly

71.3, September 2019

I, Too, Sing America: Black Patriotism from Frederick Douglass to Whitney Houston

Simon Stow

Theory & Event

Volume 28, Number 1, January 2025

Cover thumnail for Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2008

What to Israel Potter is the Fourth of July?: Melville, Douglass, and the Agency of Words

Anne Baker

Leviathan

Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2008

Uprooting, Composting, and Revolutionary History in Israel Potter

Ryan McWilliams

Leviathan

Volume 20, Number 3, October 2018

“How it Will End, the Blessed God Knows”: A Reading of Jewish Correspondence During the Revolutionary War Era

Michael Hoberman

American Jewish History

Volume 99, Number 4, October 2015

Fragments from an Early American Lutheran Parish Register

Timothy J. Wengert

Lutheran Quarterly

Volume 39, Number 4, Winter 2025

Reading Shanawdithit’s Drawings: Transcultural Texts in the North American Colonial World

Fiona Polack

Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

Volume 14, Number 3, Winter 2013

Memorializing German Lutheran Patriots of the American Republic

Karl Krueger

Lutheran Quarterly

Volume 40, Number 2, Summer 2026

Revisiting Psychoanalytic History

Brian Connolly

Reviews in American History

Volume 47, Number 3, September 2019

Cover thumnail for Volume 9, Number 5, May/June 2008

How "Exceptional" is the United States?

Alonzo L. Hamby

Historically Speaking

Volume 9, Number 5, May/June 2008

Fables and the Forming of Americans

Gillian Brown

MFS Modern Fiction Studies

Volume 43, Number 1, Spring 1997

Cover thumnail for Volume 87, Number 3, Fall 2020

Frederick Douglass's Revolutionary Publicness

Ryan Carr

ELH

Volume 87, Number 3, Fall 2020

Replacing the Father: W. E. B. Du Bois' Reflections on George Washington's Birthday

Rumiana Velikova

Callaloo

Volume 29, Number 2, Spring 2006

Dancing in the Streets with Joseph Roach

Elizabeth Maddock Dillon

Eighteenth-Century Studies

Volume 57, Number 1, Fall 2023

Walt Whitman and Civil War Washington

Kenneth M. Price

Leviathan

Volume 16, Number 1, March 2014

William Tell’s Atlantic Travels in the Revolutionary Era

Marc H. Lerner

Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture

Volume 41, 2012

Imperial Triangles: Mark Twain's Foreign Affairs

Amy Kaplan

MFS Modern Fiction Studies

Volume 43, Number 1, Spring 1997

Orthodoxy in America and America's Orthodoxies

David Bentley Hart

Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies

Volume 1, Number 2, 2018

The Face of America: Performing Race and Nation in Jessie Fauset's There is Confusion

Jane Kuenz

The Yale Journal of Criticism

Volume 12, Number 1, Spring 1999

New World Drama: The Performative Commons in the Atlantic World, 1649-1849 by Elizabeth Maddock Dillon (review)

Mark Dawson

Theatre Survey

Volume 57, Number 1, January 2016

George Washington and the Founding of Democracy

Seymour Martin Lipset

Journal of Democracy

Volume 9, Number 4, October 1998

Joice Heth: The Unlikely Arbiter of National History

Julia Tigner

J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists

Volume 12, Number 2, Winter 2024

George Washington’s Appointments to the Supreme Court

Maeva Marcus

Journal of Supreme Court History

Volume 24, Number 3, 1999

Rethinking American Jewish Emancipation: New Views on George Washington's Newport Letter

John M. Dixon

American Jewish History

Volume 107, Number 4, October 2023

Cover thumnail for Volume 6, Number 6, July/August 2005

July 4, 1826: Explaining the Same-Day Deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

Margaret P. Battin

Historically Speaking

Volume 6, Number 6, July/August 2005

Two Cheers for the Nation: An American Revolution for the Revolting United States

Jane Kamensky

Reviews in American History

Volume 47, Number 3, September 2019

Cover thumnail for Volume 13, 1984

The Revolutionary Millennialism of Thomas Paine

Jack Fruchtman Jr.

Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture
Volume 13, 1984

The New Origins Debate: Looking Back at 1619 in 2019–2021, and Beyond

David Waldstreicher

Reviews in American History

Volume 54, Number 1, March 2026

Franklin and the Revolutionary Body

Betsy Erkkila

ELH

Volume 67, Number 3, Fall 2000

American Creed: Reading the Declaration of Independence as holy text

Kathryn Lofton

The Yale Review

Volume 114, Number 2, Summer 2026

Cover thumnail for Volume 13, 1984

George Berkeley's American Declaration of Independence

William H. McGowan

Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture
Volume 12, 1983

National Graffiti: The Textual Lives of Lewis and Clark

Lauren Coats

J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists

Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015

Cover thumnail for Volume 38, Number 3, 2013

Property Rights and the American Founding: An Overview

Johnathan O’Neill

Journal of Supreme Court History
Volume 38, Number 3, 2013

Religion and the Founding of the United States: An Interview with Thomas Kidd

Randall J. Stephens

Historically Speaking

Volume 12, Number 1, January 2011

Cover thumnail for Volume 34, Number 1, 2009

The Internal Security Acts of 1798: The Founding Generation and the Judiciary during America’s First National Security Crisis

Arthur H. Garrison

Journal of Supreme Court History
Volume 34, Number 1, 2009

"To Mean What Once We Said": Richard Wilbur Celebrates the Fourth of July

William Tate

Christianity & Literature

Volume 69, Number 4, December 2020

Founding Fathers and a Daughter

Gale P. Jackson

African American Review

Volume 57, Numbers 3 and 4, Fall/Winter 2024

Watching National Treasure for the First Time

Sasha Debevec-McKenney

The Yale Review

Volume 111, Number 2, Summer 2023

Cover thumnail for Volume 1, Number 1, Winter 2008 (New Series)

Bicentennial

Edward Hirsch

The Hopkins Review

Volume 1, Number 1, Winter 2008 (New Series)

Cover thumnail for Volume 105, Number 3, July 2017

Independence Day

Ernest Hilbert

The Yale Review

Volume 105, Number 3, July 2017

Cover thumnail for Volume 19, Number 3, Spring 1976

Bicentennial Ruminations

Samuel Stearns

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

Volume 19, Number 3, Spring 1976

Introduction: A New Kind of American Revolution

Rosalind J. Beiler, Judith Ridner

Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal

Volume 23, Issue 1, Winter 2025

Cover thumnail for Volume 115, Part 2, June 2026

George Washington: Fashion Icon

Chloe Chapin

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

Volume 115, Part 2, June 2026

The Declaration of Independence and the Language of Slavery

Alexander Boulton

Journal of the Early Republic

Volume 44, Number 1, Spring 2024

Cover thumnail for Volume 83, Number 1, January 2026

Conceiving Confiscation in the American Revolution

Daniel J. Hulsebosch

The William and Mary Quarterly

Volume 83, Number 1, January 2026

Commemorating a Global Event: 459 Pesos and Other Ways to Connect Arizona to the American Revolution

David C. Turpie

Journal of Arizona History

Volume 67, Number 1, Spring 2026

Cover thumnail for Volume 92, Number 1, February 2026

Reimagining the American Revolution: Southern Women's Wars for Independence

Lorri Glover

Journal of Southern History

Volume 92, Number 1, February 2026

Publish Date: June 22, 2026

Tags: Books Journals Project Muse Democracy United States History American Revolution Colonial America Colonial History

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