March 29, 2017 Book Talk to Explore How Spain and France Helped America Win the Revolution

According to author Larrie D. Ferreiro, the American Revolution had little chance of being won by the American colonists, if it had not been for the assistance of French and Spanish soldiers, money and weapons. 

In “Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It” (Knopf, 2016), Ferreiro discusses the odds against an American victory, with the colonists having no navy, few arms and little money with which to wage a war against the powerful British military forces.

Ferreiro will discuss and sign his book on Tuesday, April 11 at noon in the Library of Congress Mary Pickford Theater, third floor, Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. This Books & Beyond event is sponsored by the Library’s Center for the Book and is free and open to the public; no tickets are required.

Spain and France provided the Americans with what in today’s dollars would be nearly $30 billion in financial assistance, as well as 90 percent of all the guns the colonists used. The two nations also sent thousands of soldiers. 

Ferreiro teaches history and engineering at George Mason University in Virginia and at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. He served for more than 35 years in the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Defense Department and was an exchange engineer in the French navy. He is also the author of “Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World” and “Ships and Science: The Birth of Naval Architecture in the Scientific Revolution.”   

The Library’s Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to stimulate public interest in books and reading, is a national force for reading and literacy promotion. A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading promotion partners and through its Young Readers Center and its Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit read.gov.

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