Seven Virginians

John B. Boles is the William P. Hobby Emeritus Professor of History at Rice University, former editor (1983-2013) of the Journal of Southern History, a former president of the Southern Historical Association, and author of Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty.

Introduction 1. The First Rumblings 2. The Fateful Step 3. Winning Independence 4. Unresolved Problems 5. Creating a New Government 6. The Virginia Ratification Debate 7. Launching the New Nation 8. Political Fissures 9. Political Crisis 10. A Political Turning Point 11. Jefferson, Madison, and John Bull 12. Mr. Madison's War 13. A Maturing Nation 14. Institution Builders 15. Legacy Deferred: The End of a Dynasty

"Boles has eloquently synthesized a massive amount of material into a narrative history which, despite the overall familiarity of much of the material, is peppered with lucid explanations of complicated events and issues and some surprising insights and tidbits." - Cynthia A. Kierner, George Mason University, author of Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello: Her Life and Times "John Boles pours a lifetime of scholarly insight and clarity into this stellar history of seven Virginians who helped create the liberal revolutionary American experiment. In a necessary corrective of recent efforts to paint the American Revolution as a reactive or conservative movement, Boles places these founding fathers in their eighteenth-century context and properly shows that they helped establish ideals that we still aspire to achieve. A timely and important book." - Douglas Bradburn, President and CEO of, George Washington's Mount Vernon, author of The Citizenship Revolution: Politics and the Creation of the American Union, 1774-1804 "Focusing on the Virginians he knows so well, John Boles offers a fresh perspective on a familiar narrative. Seven Virginians is a fitting capstone to a fine historian's distinguished career." - Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia, author of Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood