Vidal transports the reader into the minds, the living rooms (and bedrooms), the convention halls, and the salons of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and others.
We come to know these men, through Vidal's splendid and percipient prose, in ways we have not up to now-their opinions of each other, their worries about
money, their concerns about creating a viable democracy. Vidal brings them to life at the key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation. He also
illuminates the force and weight of the documents they wrote, the speeches they delivered, and the institutions of government by which we still live. More
than two centuries later, America is still largely governed by the ideas championed by this triumvirate.