About the Author

Edmund S. Morgan (1916–2013) was the Sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale University and the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, and the American Academy’s Gold Medal. The author of The Genuine Article; American Slavery, American Freedom; Benjamin Franklin; and American Heroes, among many others.

Reviews

"Edmund S. Morgan ... [is] a man with a rare gift for telling the story of the past simply and elegantly without sacrificing its abundant complexity... The story he tells is of enormous interest and importance." -- Pauline Meier - New York Times Book Review "[A] provocative new study... In a series of brilliant chapters, [Morgan] probes the myths that sustained eighteenth-century American notions of liberty." -- Keith Thomas - New York Review of Books