Beginning with Thomas Jefferson's rough draft for the Declaration of Independence, events in the years around 1776 saw the struggle for freedom of a new country, the United States. In Year of Independence, 1776, Genevieve Foster uses an approach—horizontal history—which she has so successfully used in her books for older boys and girls, this time to write for the younger reader a history of this explosive, important period. She deals with events in America—sometimes presented to children as though they were all that was taking place—in a perspective with events in other countries across the globe.

The world was becoming closer then. Elder American Benjamin Franklin was in France to watch the first men to ride in a balloon—the real start of aviation. This era saw British and U.S. attempts to establish friendly trade relations with China meet with some success. And these were the years of Captain James Cook's explorations in the Pacific, and his assassination by natives in Hawaii.

As Mrs. Foster's previous world history books have done, 1776 imparts a broad international picture of the times—its leaders, its culture, its science and politics. With the two-color maps and pictures by the author and the brief index of people and places, 1776 provides a vivid and highly readable first history for the younger reader.

From the dust jacket