Even compared to his fellow founders, George Washington stands tall. Our first president has long been considered a stoic hero, holding himself above the rough-and-tumble politics of his day. Now historian John Ferling peers behind that image, carefully burnished by Washington himself, to show us a leader who was not only not above politics, but a canny infighter--a master of persuasion, manipulation, and deniability. In the War of Independence, Washington...

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the American Revolution explains why it remains the most significant event in our history. In a series of elegant and illuminating essays, Wood explores the ideological origins of the revolution--from ancient Rome to the European Enlightenment--and the founders' attempts to forge an American democracy.

A biography of the noted statesman and political leader, who was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.

A biography that describes the love of books and learning as well as the personal life and political career of the third president of the United States.

"With these character sketches of key figures of the American Revolution and illuminating probes of its circumstances, Bernard Bailyn reveals the ambiguities, complexities, and uncertainties of the founding generation as well as their achievements." "Using visual documentation - portraits, architecture, allegorical engravings - as well as written sources, Bailyn, one of our most esteemed historians, paints a complex picture of that distant but still...