In this fictional story, Amelia Simmons, writer of the first American cookbook, creates an Independence Cake in 1789 to offer the newly elected President, George Washington.

In "Washington : a Life" celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation, dashing forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man, and revealing an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people.

"Americans like to believe that the Constitution miraculously brought the United States into being, as though the framers established, in one stroke, the nation we know today. Yet when George Washington delivered his First Inaugural Address on April 30, 1789, he expressed worry about the challenges that lay ahead. He was right to be concerned: the existence of the new nation was anything but secure. Without the support of the American people, after...

"The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the ideal framework for a democratic, prosperous nation. Alan Taylor, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, gives us a different creation story in this magisterial history of the nation's founding. Rising out of the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, Taylor's Revolution builds like a ground fire overspreading...

"When the Revolutionary War ended in victory, there remained the stupendous problem of how to establish a workable democratic government in the vast, newly independent country. Three key Founding Fathers played significant roles: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Their lives and policies could not have been more different; their relationships with each other were complex and often rife with animosity. And yet these three men led...

"The founding of America was not accomplished by a handful of people; it required the heart, soul, and grit of an entire nation. Today, we rightfully honor the efforts of the Founding Fathers, but what about everyone else who sacrificed for the cause? Introducing 'Forgotten Founders', the inspiring book of stories about the heroic women, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and others who played pivotal roles in America's birth. Make no...

Reexamines the lives of bona-fide American heroes such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and reevaluates the legacies of religious figures such as Anne Hutchinson, whose trial for heresy and banishment riveted the colonies in 1637, and unknown martyrs such as Mary Easty and Giles Cory, executed for practicing witchcraft.

In 1852, after much searching through the Black districts of Petersburg, Virginia, the amateur historian Charles Campbell finally located Isaac Granger, a formerly enslaved man who worked for the late Thomas Jefferson. Though disinterested at first in sharing his memories, Isaac was at last persuaded to tell the full story of his time in Philadelphia as a young man in the early 1790s. It was supposed to have been a simple story: he would apprentice...

Relying heavily on the correspondence between the second president, John Adams, and his wife, Abigail Adams, this joint biography sheds light on the characters of two people who played crictical roles in the history of the United States and on the tumultuous times through which they lived. He was a participant in the Continental Congress and a wartime emissary to France as well as becoming the second President of the United States during its fledging...

"As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families...