About the Author

George William Van Cleve is research professor in law and history at Seattle University School of Law. He is the author of A Slaveholders' Union, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews

"Instead of asking how the Constitution came to be adopted, Van Cleve asks why the previous government, the Articles of Confederation, failed--and why it failed not only in our own modern eyes, but in the eyes of its contemporaries. Pairing an enormous amount of scrupulous research with the unique perspective of a legal scholar, Van Cleve bridges the divide between scholarship and the curious reader. He writes with smooth, powerful, unobtrusive beauty."--Daniel Walker Howe, author of "What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, winner of the Pulitzer Prize "