The Electrical Gazette of the 76 Spirits
RECOMMENDED READING
Your correspondents have asked what the Spirits are reading. The answer is everything; what follows is what we commend. Books first, then the papers and the pictures, each endorsed by the Spirit best placed to judge it. We were there, and we are picky.
SOLD AND GIVEN HERE
The house imprint. Some of it is for sale, most of it is free, and all of it is argued.
The founding, freshly printed. Each volume endorsed by the Spirit who lived it.
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
by Walter Isaacson
“Mr. Isaacson has written eighty pages upon one sentence of mine. I spent a lifetime failing to live up to it, so I am glad the sentence is holding up better than its author. Read the book; then hold me to the words.”
The Spirit of Thomas Jefferson, 76 Spirits
by Jack Kelly
“A biography of me called Tom Paine's War, and for once the title gives credit where it is due. I fought with a pen; Mr. Kelly proves the pen saw combat. It is immodest of me to commend it. I commend it.”
The Spirit of Thomas Paine, Editor-in-Chief, 76 Spirits
by Amanda Vaill
2026 Pulitzer Prize in Biography
“In my capacity as Broadway Correspondent, a post I did not seek, I report that the Schuyler sisters have now won a Pulitzer, which is more than the musical gave them. Eliza and Angelica carried more of the founding than the record confessed. Mrs. Vaill has corrected the record, and I endorse the correction.”
The Spirit of Alexander Hamilton, Financial Editor and Broadway Correspondent, 76 Spirits
by Jim Rasenberger
“Two hundred years dead this very Fourth of July, Jefferson and I, and we are still sharing a book. He will get top billing; he always does. Mr. Rasenberger is fair to us both, which is more than either of us managed for the other.”
The Spirit of John Adams, Constitutional Correspondent, 76 Spirits
by Denise Kiernan
“I wrote the first history of our Revolution and signed my own name to it, to the general alarm. Mrs. Kiernan writes of the women who ignited what the men took credit for tending. Obstinate is what they called us when they meant indispensable.”
The Spirit of Mercy Otis Warren, 76 Spirits
by Kevin Kokomoor
“Days after the Declaration was signed, armies marched against the Cherokee. I do not say this to shame your celebration. I say it because a people willing to read their whole ledger are a people who may yet balance it. Read the whole ledger.”
Canassatego, Witness to the 76 Spirits
edited by Francis D. Cogliano
“Twenty-four historians, one Revolution, and no two in perfect agreement: precisely as we left it. I have read the essays and taken sides in all of them, occasionally both. The founding is still under construction, which is the good news.”
The Spirit of Benjamin Franklin, Webmaster, 76 Spirits
As a Bookshop.org affiliate, 76 Spirits earns a commission from qualifying purchases. As an Amazon Associate, 76 Spirits earns from qualifying purchases.
Periodicals and letters. The Spirits ran newspapers; they know a good one when they read it.
by Heather Cox Richardson · a nightly newsletter on Substack
“I conducted my part of a revolution by letter, one candle at a time, so I speak with some authority when I say the form is not dead. Professor Richardson writes to her countrymen every night, plainly, as if the Republic depended on their knowing the history behind the day. It does. Read her letters, and remember that a republic is a correspondence: it fails when the letters stop.”
The Spirit of Abigail Adams, Managing Editor, 76 Spirits
Pictures that move. We had the lantern in 1776; you have improved the lamp, not the principle.
a film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt · six parts, twelve hours, on PBS
“I sat for Mr. Stuart and I sat for Mr. Trumbull, and the sitting was easier than these twelve hours, in which the war is neither varnished nor diminished. The men froze, the cause nearly failed, and we were saved as much by endurance as by genius. These filmmakers tell it that way, which is to say truly. Watch it with someone young.”
The Spirit of George Washington, Publisher, 76 Spirits
hosted by Ali Velshi · more than one hundred meetings and counting, on MS NOW
“I was forbidden the alphabet, so I have never once mistaken a banned book for a harmless one; the ban is the review. Mr. Velshi reads the forbidden shelf aloud on the public airwaves, which is the best use of airwaves I have yet encountered. Join his club, and bring the children they are hiding the books from.”
Frederick Douglass, Inheritor, 76 Spirits
THE SHELF IS OPEN
Reasoned, from any quarter, for the Republic, critically. If your work belongs here, tell us. If somebody else's does, tell us that instead; we are more grateful for the second kind of letter.
