By Richard Beeman. In hardcover, ISBN: 978-1-4000-6570-7. In softcover, ISBN: 978-0-8129-7684-7. Copyright 2009. 514 pages including appendices, notes, index and 24 black and white illustrations.

Winner of the 2010 George Washington Book Prize.

In May 1787, in an atmosphere of crisis, delegates met in Philadelphia to design a radically new form of government. This behind the scenes account of those proceedings shows how the world’s most enduring constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, and fragile consensus.