"[A] superb distillation of a complex moment in U.S. history."- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Drawing on hundreds of sources to paint a vivid portrait of a new nation, Thomas B. Allen tells the long-hidden history of how George Washington and the other Founders set this new federal government into motion.

Prologue: Eleven States Create a Nation

1 The Great Cause

2 The Specter of a King

3 The Reluctant President

4 Out with the Old

5 A New Government Awakens

6 "Now a King"

7 Etiquette Advice for the President

8 "All Is Bare Creation"

9 The Constitution as Blueprint

10 Counting We the People

11 America's "Other Persons"

12 A Tub Full of Rights

13 "He Shall Have Power"

14 Stricken Washington, Fearful Nation

15 Washington Gets a Bastille Key

16 Seeing America's Farms and Factories

17 Many Pirates-And No Navy

18 The Second Session: Hope and Angst

19 On the Frontier, Spies and Plots

20 Toward an American Language

Epilogue: In Rising Glory

Appendices

1 The "Correct"

Constitution of the United States

2 Inside the Dozen: the Bill of Rights

3 A Timeline of the Founding of the United States and the Federal Government

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Bibliographic Sources

Index

About the Author

Thomas B. Allen, esteemed and prolific author of numerous history books, including Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War (2010), Remember Valley Forge (2007), and George Washington, Spymaster (2004), lived for many years in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside the nation's capital. He was a frequent contributor to Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic, Military History Quarterly, Military History,Naval History, the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings, and other publications.