Franklin loved science and ideas, but disliked controversy, a disposition that made him reluctant to enter politics. It is one of history's greatest ironies that this hesitant politician would become one of the most important political figures in the English-speaking world. Survey Franklin's entry into politics and consider his style as a politician.

Thomas Paine arrived in America from England in 1774. A friend of Ben Franklin, he was a writer of poetry and tracts condemning the slave trade. In 1775, as hostilities between Britain and the colonies intensified, Paine wrote "Common Sense" to encourage the colonies to break the British exploitative hold through independence.

Provides background information on the people and events connected with the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

"Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, "Samuel Adams was the man." With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd and eloquent man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution. He employed every tool available to rally a town,...

"Step back in time to the birth of America and meet the real-life rebels who made this country free! On a hot summer day near Philadelphia in 1776, Thomas Jefferson sat at his desk and wrote furiously until early the next morning. He was drafting the Declaration of Independence, a document that would sever this country's ties with Britain and announce a new nation --The United States of America. Colonists were willing to risk their lives for freedom,...

Today's students all know what the Declaration of Independence is. One of the things they will discover in Understanding the Declaration of Independence is what a beautiful, powerful piece of writing it is, as they read Thomas Jefferson's rough draft in its entirety. They may also be surprised to learn that its authors intended the document as something like a press release to let people know that the Continental Congress had voted for independence....

The Founding Fathers have been hailed for centuries as shining examples of men who put aside their own agendas to found a nation. But behind the scenes, there were more petty fights and fraught relationships than signatures on the Declaration of Independence. From the violent brawl between Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon in the halls of Congress, to George Washington's battle against his slave Harry Washington, these less-discussed clashes bring to...

From the New York Times–bestselling author of Seward and Stanton comes the definitive biography of John Jay: “Wonderful” (Walter Isaacson, New York Times–bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci).
 
John Jay is central to the early history of the American Republic. Drawing on substantial new material, renowned biographer Walter Stahr has written a full and highly readable...

"The award-winning author of Founding Brothers and The Quartet now gives us a deeply insightful examination of the relevance of the views of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams to some of the most divisive issues in America today. The story of history is a ceaseless conversation between past and present, and in American Dialogue Joseph J. Ellis focuses the conversation on the often-asked question "What would the Founding...

"Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slave owner, while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist...