At a time when surveys reveal that Americans know less and less about our past, Tony Williams provides entertaining and informative descriptions of 50 of the most important and dramatic events from the colonial and Revolutionary period-some known and some forgotten-from the Mayflower Compact to the Annapolis Convention. Published in association with The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, America's Beginnings takes the reader throughout the American colonies and introduces many leading figures, from John Smith and John Winthrop to the Founding Fathers. Along the way, Williams examines the principles that led colonists to come to America and succeeding generations to become a free and independent nation. Read individually or from cover to cover, these stories illuminate the founding principles and heroic struggles that established the country and shaped the American character.

Tony Williams is the author of Hurricanes of Independence: The Untold Story of the Deadly Storm at the Deciding Moment of the American Revolution and The Pox and the Covenant: Franklin, Mather, and the Epidemic that Changed America's Destiny. He resides in Williamsburg. Virginia.