Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In Founding Mothers, Cokie Roberts paid homage to the heroic women whose patriotism and sacrifice helped create a new nation. Now the number one New York Times bestselling author and renowned political commentator—praised in USA Today as a "custodian of time-honored values"—continues the story of early America's influential women with Ladies of Liberty. In her "delightfully intimate and confiding" style (Publishers Weekly), Roberts presents a colorful blend of biographical portraits and behind-the-scenes vignettes chronicling women's public roles and private responsibilities.

Recounted with the insight and humor of an expert storyteller and drawing on personal correspondence, private journals, and other primary sources—many of them previously unpublished—Roberts brings to life the extraordinary accomplishments of women who laid the groundwork for a better society. Almost every quotation here is written by a woman, to a woman, or about a woman. From first ladies to freethinkers, educators to explorers, this exceptional group includes Abigail Adams, Margaret Bayard Smith, Martha Jefferson, Dolley Madison, Elizabeth Monroe, Louisa Catherine Adams, Eliza Hamilton, Theodosia Burr, Rebecca Gratz, Louisa Livingston, Rosalie Calvert, Sacajawea, and others. In a much-needed addition to the shelves of Founding Father literature, Roberts sheds new light on the generation of heroines, reformers, and visionaries who helped shape our nation, giving these ladies of liberty the recognition they so greatly deserve.

About the Author

Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News and a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. From 1996 to 2002, she and Sam Donaldson coanchored the weekly ABC interview program This Week.

In addition to broadcasting, Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, writes a weekly column syndicated in newspapers around the country by United Media. Both are also contributing editors to USA Weekend, and together they wrote From This Day Forward, an account of their now more than forty-year marriage and other marriages in American history. The book immediately went onto the New York Times bestseller list. Roberts is also the author of the bestsellers Founding Mothers and its companion volume Ladies of Liberty. A mother of two and grandmother of six, she lives with her husband in Bethesda, Maryland.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006078234X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060782344
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.7 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #27,623 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #10 in	Books > Nonfiction > Women's Studies > History
  #17 in	Books > History > United States > 19th Century > Antebellum
  #58 in	Books > History > United States > Revolution & Founding

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Founding Fathers' "Significant Others", April 12, 2008

By	Bart King (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I enjoyed Cokie Roberts' earlier book, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation, and on the basis of that, I gave LADIES OF LIBERTY a spin.

While I know a little bit about US history, Roberts' new book contains material that is a revelation. The letters of former First Ladies and other women who were on the scene at the founding of our nation provides the primary source material. Their takes from yesteryear on topics as diverse as infant mortality, foreign policy, and hats (!) gives a new and much-needed perspective on life and culture in early America.

While women are obviously and profoundly influential on historical events in America, Roberts had to closely study their correspondences to learn how. (In other words, "traditional" histories aren't necessarily helpful in this regard.) While perusing the letters of an age gone by, the author shows her eye for the telling (and juicy) anecdote, and she does an excellent and witty job of putting these words from yesteryear into context for the contemporary reader.

As what I've written so far reads like well-meaning blather, the best way to share my thoughts is this way:

Highly recommended!

50 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A DAME !, April 22, 2008

By	Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

As fascinating as a today tell-all Ladies of Liberty is full of vignettes and episodes that reveal the strength, courage and perseverance of America's early heroines. Not only are there personal revelations regarding many of these women but also reminders of how a young country struggled to grow.

Sometimes with only a few pages acclaimed journalist/commentator Cokie Roberts captures the essence of the women who played such an important role in our history. Among those included are Abigail Adams, Martha Jefferson, Dolley Madison, Martha Washington, Theodosia Burr, and Sacajawea.

Strength was the hallmark of many in this sisterhood as we are reminded that for five years Boston born Abigail Adams was separated from her husband, John, while he attended to matters in France, Holland and England. As always during that period he relied upon her to be his faithful reporter of doings at home. Not only that but it was also her task to support their family by tending to their farm, selling whatever John sent from abroad, raise their young children, and care for ailing relatives.

Of that period in his mother's life John Quincy Adams later wrote, "My mother with her infant children dwelt, liable every hour of the day and night to be butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried to Boston as hostages."

It is quotations such as the above taken from journals, diaries, and personal letters that make the stories of these women so vivid as they fulfilled both their personal and public roles.

Reading the words of Cokie Roberts is very much like listening to her - she is a marvelous storyteller, casting a spell with her words and drawing us in. Ladies Of Liberty is a remarkable work and a valuable contribution to the annals of our history.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Untold stories, April 20, 2008

By	Robin Orlowski "political activist" (United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is not infotainment. This is a page-turner merely because the subject matter just gets overlooked in the conventional accounts of history.

And I'm being honest when I state that I had formerly assumed that American women's history did not significantly occur till Seneca Falls. Roberts's second well-researched volume continues documenting that history was occurring well before that landmark New York conference.

I think that our school history classes and even the structure of our very sociery would today be much different if everybody fully knew and was appreciating the role which women had in shaping this nation. White women predominate in the volume, but also included is Sacajawea. She is the indian often mythologized for helping Lewis and Clark explore what ultimately became the western United States.

And what else stands out for me is that these women aired their policy opinions in an era when they allegedly supposed to be sequestered away at home. These women then obviously had other ideas for themselves--and the nation! Such is a powerful lesson about cultural expectations and the-oft more nuanced reality.

As the daughter of former 'Congresswoman' Lindy Boggs, Roberts certainly has had her own familial experiences navigating this terrain. I do not doubt it nurtured her interest in unearthing the stories which would otherwise never get told. Reflections on the historical evolution of women's status also move this book beyond a mere collection of biographical profiles.

I'd recommend this book for anybody interested in American history and those curious about women's experiences and perspectives.