Today we celebrate 231 years of American independence with parades and traditional past times of barbecues and fireworks. As we enjoy this patriotic holiday, Yale University Press looks to our founding fathers who brought forth new ideas to an emerging nation.

In this New York Times Bestseller, Gore Vidal’s Inventing a Nation provides us with his uniquely irreverent take on America’s founding fathers. Vidal brings them to life at the key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation and considers the impact of their ideas and personalities on an America that he views with both pride and concern.

Today also marks the opening day of the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary exhibition at the Atlanta History Center. Designed to accompany the celebration of his 300th birthday, Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World, is the first highly illustrated book ever published on this founding father.

Edited by eminent Franklin scholar Edmund S. Morgan, Not Your Usual Founding Father,introduces us to the gregarious founding father who would be a welcome guest at any dinner table. Morgan also edited the biography, Benjamin Franklin, a finalist for the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award in biography as well as a New York Times Bestseller.

For those wishing to know more about Franklin as diplomat or his wisdom, Ellen R. Cohn’s The Papers of Benjamin Franklin or the second edition of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin might whet the appetite.

However you choose to celebrate, Happy Fourth of July from Yale University Press!