"The narrative offers informed, exacting characterizations of the
uncertain political alliances, strained interactions and ideological
growing pains that elites of the post-revolutionary decades put the
country through."--Andrew Burstein, The Washington Post
A vivid account of leadership focusing on the first four Virginia
presidents--George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and
James Monroe--from the bestselling historian and author of James
Madison.
From a small expanse of land on the North American continent came four
of the nation's first five presidents--a geographic dynasty whose
members led a revolution, created a nation, and ultimately changed the
world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James
Monroe were born, grew to manhood, and made their homes within a
sixty-mile circle east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Friends and rivals,
they led in securing independence, hammering out the United States
Constitution, and building a working republic. Acting together, they
doubled the territory of the United States. From their disputes came
American political parties and the weaponizing of newspapers, the media
of the day. In this elegantly conceived and insightful new book from
bestselling author Lynne Cheney, the four Virginians are not marble
icons but vital figures deeply intent on building a nation where
citizens could be free.
Focusing on the intersecting roles these men played as warriors,
intellectuals, and statesmen, Cheney takes us back to an exhilarating
time when the Enlightenment opened new vistas for humankind. But even as
the Virginians advanced liberty, equality, and human possibility, they
held people in slavery and were slaveholders when they died. Lives built
on slavery were incompatible with a free and just society; their actions
contradicted the very ideals they espoused. They managed nonetheless to
pass down those ideals, and they became powerful weapons for ending
slavery. They inspired Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and today
undergird the freest nation on earth.
Taking full measure of strengths and failures in the personal as well as
the political lives of the men at the center of this book, Cheney offers
a concise and original exploration of how the United States came to be.
