Reddit mentions of The First Salute

The First Salute by Barbara Tuchman covers both the American Revolution and piracy in the West Indies. It's a superb book and filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge of European history and mercantilism.

Mike Duncan of History of Rome fame is currently doing a podcast series called Revolutions. He's already covered the American Revolution and is in the middle of the French Revolution right now.

For the Revolutionary War

• This Glorious Cause. One volume book, so it's not going to cover everything but for a general overview of the Revolutionary War it's great.
  
  
• Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy I'm partial to this one because of the focus on the Navy.
  
  
• Paul Revere's Ride Fischer does a great job in explaining the build up to the Revolution using Revere as a central figure.
  
  
• The First Salute. Barbara Truchman writes here about the vital role the Dutch played in keeping the Revolution alive via trade, and the consequences of that trade for the Dutch. It can sometime lose focus as Truchman goes into great detail about things that probably would be better left to footnotes, but it's still a great read. (Her Guns of August won a Pulitzer, and in my opinion it's a must-read for anyone at all interested in WWI.)
  
  For the Civil War
  
  
• The Civil War: A Narrative, by Shelby Foote. I'm a big fan of this, but it is three volumes so that means it's rather long.
  
  
• Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson is also another classic in the field.
  
  
• Grant's Memoirs and Sherman's Memoirs are both must-reads.
  
  I have to recommend Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and Killer Angels by Michael Sharra, both fantastic military fiction.
  
  
  
  

Hence the title of Barbara Tuckman's book The First Salute

Volgens Barbar Tuchman begonnen de betrekkingen al op Nov. 16, 1776 toen op St. Eustatius de First Salute werd gegeven. Wat maak je daarvan?

Barbara Tuchman's great book The First Salute talks about this event in her history of the American Revolution.