Prisoners of Congress is one of the best books I've read in ages. If history is traditionally dry, this book is an atmospheric river. The factual telling and interpreting of this little-known history is so vivid and character-based that it feels cinematic. It captures how our social values at the time history was made directed the actions of our ancestors-and in so doing set the foundations for so much of what was to come. This book is so cinematic I would not be surprised to see it on Netflix sooner rather than later.
-Senator John Hickenlooper
Norman Donoghue's Prisoners of Congress brings to life one of the most important and compelling events of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. It is an untold story of national significance.
-Patrick Spero,author of Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776
Anybody interested in the tensions between politics and religion, a matter so urgent to us today, should read Donoghue's account of the Quaker exiles. Almost novelistic in its compelling narrative, this study marshals familiar and unfamiliar sources to recover the story of America's first political prisoners.
-Scott Paul Gordon,author of The Letters of Mary Penry: A Single Moravian Woman in Early America
Far from a niche story, Prisoners of Congress is a meticulously researched book with enormous present-day relevance. It reveals important truths about American political and religious institutions before, during, and after the Revolution and shines a startlingly new and important light on familiar people, places, and themes.
-Sarah Crabtree,author of Holy Nation: The Transatlantic Quaker Ministry in an Age of Revolution
Norman Donoghue has given us what is likely to be the definitive account of a largely forgotten but significant episode of the American Revolution. Elegantly written and based on exhaustive research, Prisoners of Congress illustrates the tensions between religious liberty and dissent, on one hand, and fears of invasion and subversion, on the other, that have been present from the founding of the American republic.
-Thomas Hamm,Earlham College
Donoghue's book is not only an exceptional examination of a little-known episode during the War of Independence, but also a cautionary tale for our divided times.
-Max L. Carter,William R. Rogers Director of Friends Center and Quaker Studies (emeritus), Guilford College
Prisoners of Congress illustrates how the national debate over individual rights versus national security regarding habeas corpus in wartime began not during the Civil War but during the very founding of our nation. . . . An excellent read as well as an educational one for a debate that continues to this day.
-Philip Wasielewski,Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute
Prisoners of Congress is a fascinating tale recounting a little-known roundup of Quaker leaders during the Revolution, to tell us in spare, elegant prose, the story of their history in Philadelphia and what made them tick.
-John Lehman,65th Secretary of the Navy, member of the 9/11 Commission, and author of Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea
