Author Interviews

Pulitzer-prize winning author Nathaniel Philbrick discusses his books In the Hurricane's Eye which examines the year leading up to the victory at Yorktown and Valiant Ambition, which looks at the relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold.

Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder, Professor of Law at Boston College Law School, discuss Eliza Harriet Barons O'Connor’s role in women’s education.

Renowned historians Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf came to Mount Vernon as part of the Michelle Smith Lecture Series to discuss their joint work, Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination.

Michael Harris, author of Brandywine: A Military History of the Battle that Lost Philadelphia but Saved America, September 11, 1777 shares his views about the Brandywine Campaign and its importance to the American Revolution.

Dr. Cassandra Good, assistant professor of history at Marymount University, explores what it was like for Martha Washington's children and grandchildren to grow up at Mount Vernon.

Robert Paulett, Associate Professor of American History at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, explores 18th-century maps.

Dr. Joyce Lindorff's current research focuses on late 18th-century keyboard instruments and home music-making, specifically cultural and expressive aspects of the harpsichord purchased by George Washington for Nelly Custis. She was one of the first to play Mount Veron's reproduction of Nelly Parke Custis’s harpsichord.

Mark Tabbert, Director of Collections at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association in Alexandria, VA., discuss Freemasonry in early American history.

Dr. James Kirby Martin is a nationally recognized scholar on the Revolutionary War period and is the author of Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary War Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered.

Their book Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle is the definitive account of this important, but often overlooked, Revolutionary War campaign in New Jersey.

The author of The Men Who Lost America discusses the many challenges facing Britain and its military during the Revolutionary War. This book was selected as the George Washington Book Prize winner in 2014.

Todd Andrlik is the author and editor of Reporting the Revolutionary War, an award-winning look at the impact that newspapers had on the Revolutionary War period.