The Revolutionary Years, 1775–1789, reveals how the nation’s leaders asserted power during the fourteen crucial years from the Revolution’s first shots at Lexington in April 1775 to the adoption of the Constitution in 1789.

The American Revolution unfolded in two phases, winning independence and then creating “a more perfect union” that guaranteed representation and natural rights for all citizens. To prevail in those struggles the Founders had to tap and eventually master two powerful historic forces—nationalism and liberalism.

National leadership

is about mastering the dynamic among a country’s interests, power, and policies. Although military battles were relatively infrequent during the leisurely pace of eighteenth-century warfare, political battles were incessant. Those who championed the United States of America triumphed during the sweltering, seemingly endless months at Philadelphia from May to September 1787, when the delegates hammered out the Constitution.

With the Constitution’s ratification, the Revolution came to a symbolic and substantive end. Ever since, Americans have debated, and at times shed blood over, just what the Founders intended and how to realize those ideals. In this fascinating book, William Nester examines how the Founders’ experience in revolution and nation-building caused them to understand leadership as an art—one that ultimately became the distinctive art of American power.