Seven Virginians : the men who shaped our republic

Seven Virginians , the culmination of a lifetime of erudition by one of America’s leading historians, reveals the integral role played by seven major Virginians before, during, and after the American Revolution: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, George Mason, Patrick Henry, and John Marshall. Most accounts of the founding generation focus only on the activities of the "big three"—Washington, Jefferson, and Madison—but Boles incorporates the key contributions of these other four important figures to the political and legal structures that govern the United States to this day. At the same time, Boles is clear-eyed about the Revolutionary generation’s problems and their fading from the scene, inaugurating the beginnings of Virginia’s political decline in the early nineteenth century. In so doing, Boles provides the crucial Virginian piece to the ongoing reevaluation of the United States’ founding moment. "The culmination of a lifetime of erudition by one of America's leading historians, Seven Virginians is a narrative history and synthesis of the major scholarship on the period between 1750 and 1830 that examines the place of seven major Virginians before, during, and after the American Revolution: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, George Mason, Patrick Henry, and John Marshall. With refreshing candor regarding the problems of the Revolutionary generation, the author charts Virginia's central role in the nation's early years and the beginnings of the commonwealth's political decline in the early nineteenth century"-- Provided by publisher