Reddit reviews Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution

• Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution, by A.J. Langguth. A unified biographical work that is both entertaining and informative.
  
• Saratoga: A Military History of the Decisive Campaign of the American Revolution, by John Luzader. Luzader was the superintendent at the Saratoga National Battlefield for a quarter of a century. Hailed as perhaps the finest historian of the American Revolution ever employed by the National Park Service.
  
• Bloody Mohawk: The French and Indian War & American Revolution on New York's Frontier, by Richard Berleth. A book that deals with the bloodiest of battlefronts during the war, a theater that has been grossly neglected by mainstream history. Details the countless raids conducted by Tories, British regulars, Senecas, and Cayugas throughout the Mohawk Valley and in fact the entire area between the Mohawk, Hudson, and Delaware rivers in New York State. Also makes the connection with the French and Indian War, the outcomes of which one must understand in order to fully grasp the causes for the Revolution.

Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution is phenomenal, as is A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic.

1776 is a great book, and you should definitely read it, but it only covers the year 1776 (and just leading up to it).

If you can only get one book, go with Patriots (It starts in the 1750s, so it's certainly in-depth).

One of the best contemporary books I've read in recent months that gives a nice overview of the events leading up to and through the American Revolution is Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution by A.J. Langguth. It covers a lot of the background (from around 1765ish, I think) all the way through Yorktown.

Another absolutely great book describing the events surrounding the eruption of open hostilities between England and the colonists on 19 April 1775 (Battle of Lexington and Concord) is Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer. This book serves as the basis for the history portion of Project Appleseed, some of the best and most fun rifle marksmanship training out there. If you've never done an Appleseed weekend, I highly recommend it.

A lot of the things I read now tends to be original source material....as a lot of authors can put their own spin or interpretations on events (whether intentional or subconsciously). While slightly more difficult to read, original source material is invaluable in understanding the events as they happenned. For this, I recommend not only the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Federalist/Antifederalist Papers, but Founding America: Documents from the Revolution to the Bill of Rights is also a fascinating resource.

Patriots: The Men Who started the American Revolution by A.J. Langguth you can check it out here