The 1760s were a period of great agitation in the American colonies. The policies implemented by the British resulted in an outcry from the Americans that inaugurated the radical ideas leading to the Revolution in 1775. John Dickinson led the way in the "war of ink" between America and Britain, which saw over 1,000 pamphlets and essays written both for and against British policy. King George III, the new British monarch, wrote extensively on the role of Britain in the colonial world and sought to find a middle way between the quickly rising feelings on both sides of the debate. This book tells the story of this radical decade as it occurred in writing, drawing from primary sources and rarely seen exchanges.

With the American revolutionaries in discord following victory at Yorktown and the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783, the proposed federal Constitution of 1787 faced an uncertain future when it was sent to the states for ratification. Sensing an historic moment, three authors - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay - circulated 85 essays among their fellow statesmen, arguing for a strong federal union. Next to the Constitution itself, the Federalist Papers are the most referenced statement of the Founding Fathers' intentions in forming the U.S. Government. This book takes a fresh look at the Papers in the context of the times in which they were created.

By turns irreverent, sympathetic and amusing, America Writes Its History, 1650-1850 adds to the public discourse on national identity as advanced through the written word. Highlighting the contributions of American writers who focused on history, the author shows that for nearly 200 years writers struggled to reflect, or influence, the public perception of America by Americans. This book is an introduction to the development of history as a written art form, and an academic discipline, during America's most crucial and impressionable period. America Writes Its History, 1650-1850 takes the reader on a historical tour of written histories-whether narrative history, novels, memoirs or plays-from the Jamestown Colony to the edge of the Civil War. The thread of history running through these two centuries from Jamestown to Fort Sumter is encapsulated by this question: What exactly did we, as Americans, think of ourselves? And more importantly; What did we want non-Americans to think of us? In other words, what was (and is) history, and who, if anyone, owns it?

The development of an American Constitutional law after achieving independence eluded the Founders until the Constitutional Convention in 1787. With that event, America was set on a course to develop an unique system of law with roots deep in the English common law tradition. This new system of law, embodied in a Constitution, forever changed the course of American national development after the failure of the Articles of Confederation. The new system of American law had at its foundation Article III of the Constitution, calling for a national judiciary headed by a supreme court. In February 1790, the new Supreme Court met for the first time. Over the next decade, before the arrival of John Marshall (oftentimes mistaken as the first Chief Justice) jurists such as John Jay (the first Chief), James Iredell, Bushrod Washington, James Wilson, and others, set in motion not only the new Supreme Court but the new federal judiciary which has become the envy of the world today. These Founders, many forgotten today, displayed great dexterity in maneuvering the fraught political landscape quickly developing in the 1790s.