This methodical discussion of the many currents of political thought that developed, interracted, and evolved during the Revolutionary Period is organized according to critical topics that dominated each phase of of the inception, gestation, and birth of the nation over the brief and momentus period from 1776 to 1787. Some of these same debates are roiling the country today, though without the same level of reasoned argument and without reference to (or perhaps awareness of) the relevant debates of the founding generation.

Probably the best book on the American Revolution and the ideas surrounding it.