"The prizewinning author of Founding Brothers and American Sphinx now gives us the unexpected story--brilliantly told--of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. The triumph of the American Revolution was neither an ideological nor political guarantee that the colonies would relinquish their independence and accept the creation of a federal...

Explains the formation of the United States Constitution, the people involved in getting it ratified, and how it changed government.

Takes readers back to 1787 Philadelphia where George Washington and James Madison help to create a government for the new nation.