cover image The Forging of the Union, 1781-1789

The Forging of the Union, 1781-1789

Richard B. Morris. HarperCollins Publishers, $22.95 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-06-015733-3

Columbia University historian Morris's exhaustively researched history is a sequel to his Bancroft Prizewinning The Peacemakers. Here he chronicles the dissensions and debates of the troubled period when, having won independence from George III's England, unpaid revolutionary soldiers straggled home to economic depression and chaos in their respective colonies. Morris provides a superbly revealing description of the fiscal and political problems that led Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hancock, a recalcitrant Patrick Henry and other leaders to convene in Philadelphia to establish a constitution and a lasting Union. Photos. (May 27)