Russell Shorto's work has been praised as "first-rate intellectual history" ( Wall Street Journal ), "literary alchemy" ( Chicago Tribune ) and simply "astonishing" ( New York Times ). In his epic new book, Russell Shorto takes us back to the founding of the American nation, drawing on diaries, letters and autobiographies to flesh out six lives that cast the era in a fresh new light. They include an African man who freed himself and his family from slavery, a rebellious young woman who abandoned her abusive husband to chart her own course and a certain Mr. Washington, who was admired for his social graces but harshly criticized for