The Tricky Politics of America's War for Independence. Historian H.W. Brands new book draws out the complexities of the country’s original great struggle and what it can tell us about where we are today. Working to shine light on overlooked complexities, Brands’ probes the intersections of individual lives and narratives - what he calls “little history” - with the overarching accounts of “big history” - in his latest book, Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution, was published by Doubleday in November.