Taming Democracy "The People," the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution

Americans see the Founding Fathers as selfless patriots who fought British tyranny and brought democracy to the land. But in this award-winning book, Terry Bouton reveals that as the War for Independence ended, the Revolutionary elite began to abandon democratic ideas to embrace instead a newvision where government worked to transfer wealth to "moneyed men." Centering on Pennsylvania, the symbolic center of democracy's rise, Bouton shows intimately how the war and the events that followed (such as the misnamed Whiskey Rebellion) affected the majority of "the people," introducing us tothe Revolution's unsung heroes--farmers, weavers, and tailors who risked their lives to create democracy and then to defend it against what they called the forces of "united avarice." We also get a starkly new look some familiar characters from the Revolution, including Benjamin Franklin, AlexanderHamilton, Robert Morris, and George Washington, men who Bouton portrays as real, flawed people, blinded by their own sense of entitlement.

Terry Bouton is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.