American Revolutionary War

1775–1783 CE

The American Revolutionary War was fought from 1775 to 1783 between Great Britain and its thirteen rebelling North American colonies, later joined by France, Spain and the Dutch Republic as Britain’s enemies. The conflict grew from disputes over taxation, representation, imperial authority and colonial rights. It became a war for independence and a wider Atlantic struggle.

The war mattered because it created the United States and forced Britain to rethink its empire. It also affected Loyalists, enslaved people, Indigenous nations, soldiers, sailors and civilians whose choices were constrained by geography and survival. The conflict belongs as much to family disruption and divided loyalty as to constitutional history.

Bernard Cornwell’s Redcoat is a clear historical novel set in this conflict, and Diana Gabaldon’s later Outlander books move into the American Revolutionary world. The period supports series about Loyalists, rebels, British officers, spies, frontier families, enslaved people seeking freedom and communities split by allegiance. It is especially useful for books that connect Georgian Britain to the Atlantic colonies.

Related people for American Revolutionary War

Abraham Lincoln1809–1865 Alexander Hamilton1757–1804 Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington1769–1852 Benedict Arnold1741–1801 Benjamin Franklin1706–1790 Francis McLeandied 1781 Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben1730–1794 George III1738–1820 George Washington1732–1799 Giuseppe Garibaldi1807–1882 Horatio Nelson1758–1805 James Madison1751–1836 John Adams1735–1826 John Laurens1754–1782 John Moore1761–1809 Napoleon1769–1821 Paul Revere1735–1818 Peleg Wadsworth1748–1829 Robert Clive1725–1774 Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald1775–1860 Thomas Hickeydied 1776 Thomas Jefferson1743–1826 William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe1729–1814

Series

Series about American Revolutionary War (1 series)

The American Revolutionary War in Order

by Jeff Shaara 2 books 4.6

Jeff Shaara’s two-volume American Revolution sequence follows the colonies from the Boston Massacre and political resistance of the early 1770s through the British surrender at Yorktown. Rise to Rebellion concentrates on the transformation of lawyers, merchants and provincial leaders into revolutionaries; The Glorious Cause follows the Continental Army…