Notes

• "The first generation of Americans inherited a truly new world - and, with it, the task of working out the terms of Independence. Anyone who started a business, marketed a new invention, ran for office, formed an association, or wrote for publication was helping to fashion the world’s first liberal society." "Through data gathered on thousands of people, as well as hundreds of memoirs and autobiographies, Joyce Appleby tells myriad intersecting stories of how Americans who lived between 1776 and 1830 reinvented themselves and their society in politics, economics, reform, religion, and culture."–BOOK JACKET