The Electrical Gazette of the 76 Spirits
ARM YOURSELF WITH KNOWLEDGE
Four layers. What arms you, and what you are defending. Sharpen all four.
by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns
“They call it an intimate history, and it is: the war as it was lived in kitchens, camps, and correspondence, not merely commanded from horseback. I kept one of those households and wrote a great many of those letters. This book remembers us.”
The Spirit of Abigail Adams, Managing Editor, 76 Spirits
by Rick Atkinson
“Mr. Atkinson has me at Valley Forge again, begging Congress for shoes, and I confess I read on to be certain we still won. Exact, unsparing, and true to the men who stood it.”
The Spirit of George Washington, Publisher, 76 Spirits
by Jill Lepore
2026 Pulitzer Prize in History
“Professor Lepore has counted more than eleven thousand knocks upon the door we left unlocked in Article Five. This is the history of the Constitution as we meant it to be understood: unfinished, and worth finishing.”
The Spirit of James Madison, Constitutional Analyst, 76 Spirits
THE COMMON SENSE TRILOGY
250 years in the making. The Annotated Common Sense looks backward. Common Decency examines the present. Common Sense, NOW! demands a future.
The pamphlet that lit the fuse, annotated 250 years on.
The present examined.
A future demanded.
Coming soon; the presses are hot.
Free to read, handsome to own. Bound and printed on demand through Lulu; free PDFs may be copied and distributed for classroom use.
THE SPIRITS' OWN PUBLICATIONS
They have had 250 years to think about what they want to say. They are not finished saying it.
In 1787, three men wrote eighty-five essays to convince a nation to ratify its own Constitution. Now all eighty-five return with new forewords by the Spirits, guided by Publius the Cat. At 274,000 words, it is not light reading. It was never meant to be.
Hamilton, Madison, Jay, and Publius
In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a book of poetry. She was enslaved. She wrote about liberty. Her original poems, annotated not by Wheatley herself, but by the Spirits who came after and who can speak to what her words meant to them and to history.
Phillis Wheatley, Poet Laureate
We are advised the modern attention span runs to eight seconds. We shall try to be worth a few of them.
A desk, not a throne. A term, not a reign. A public trust, not a family inheritance. A reminder of what your Constitution says, and a plain accounting of how far you have wandered from it.
FOR TEACHERS
Using the site, judged by the Spirits, paid at the end of the school year so the winner can spend it over the summer.