Profiles John Adams, an influential patriot during the American Revolution who became the nation's first vice president and second president.

From the first shots fired at Lexington to the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, Joseph J. Ellis guides us through the decisive issues of the nation’s founding, and illuminates the emerging philosophies, shifting alliances, and personal and political foibles of our now iconic leaders–Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Adams. He casts an incisive eye on the founders’...

In this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, "What made these men great?" and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of each Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these...

"The Declaration of Independence was the American colonists' formal declaration that they no longer wanted to be part of Great Britain. Instead, they wanted to be able to decide on their own laws and support only themselves, not another country half a world away. This volume explores what is in the Declaration of Independence and the effects the document had on what is now the United States. Through accessible text, augmented with fact boxes, critical-thinking...

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • Benjamin Franklin, perhaps the pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this “thorough biography of ... America’s first Renaissance man” (The Washington Post) by the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War.
"The authoritative Franklin biography for our...

Describes the history of the U.S. Constitution, its primary functions, how it has changed over the years, and why it is still important today.

Grand in scope, rigorous in its arguments, and elegantly synthesizing thirty years of scholarship, Gordon S. Wood's Pulitzer Prize-winning book analyzes the social, political, and economic consequences of 1776. In The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Wood depicts not just a break with England, but the rejection of an entire way of life: of a society with feudal dependencies, a politics of patronage, and a world view in which people were divided...

"A culminating work on the American Founding by one of its leading historians, The Cause rethinks the American Revolution as we have known it. George Washington claimed that anyone who attempted to provide an accurate account of the war for independence would be accused of writing fiction. At the time, no one called it the "American Revolution": former colonists still regarded themselves as Virginians or Pennsylvanians, not Americans, while John Adams...

Describes the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence as well as the personalities and politics behind its framing.