author
Sydney George Fisher
1856–1927
A Philadelphia lawyer turned popular historian, he wrote lively books that tried to make early American history feel vivid and human. He is especially remembered for The True History of the American Revolution, a work that challenged simple patriotic myths.
3 Audiobooks
The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal"
by Sydney George Fisher
The Quaker Colonies: A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware
by Sydney George Fisher
The True Benjamin Franklin
by Sydney George Fisher
About the author
Born in Philadelphia in 1856, Sydney George Fisher came from a family with deep Pennsylvania roots and studied at St. Paul's School, Trinity College, and Harvard Law School before joining the bar. Although trained as a lawyer, he became better known as a writer who explored American history, law, and politics for general readers.
His books often focused on major figures and founding-era questions, including The Evolution of the Constitution, The Making of Pennsylvania, The True Benjamin Franklin, The True William Penn, and The True History of the American Revolution. That last book became his best-known work, noted for pushing back against neat legends and showing the Revolution as a more complicated struggle.
Fisher died in 1927. Today he is remembered as a clear, energetic interpreter of American history whose books aimed to be readable as well as argumentative, bringing debates about the nation's beginnings to a wider audience.