This series of profiles of Americans who took courageous stands at crucial moments in public life includes John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund G. Ross, Lucius Q.C. Lamar, George Norris, Robert A Taft and others.

"Alexander Hamilton was arguably the most important figure in American history who never attained the presidency, but he had a far more lasting impact than many who did." "An illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, Hamilton rose with stunning speed to become George Washington's aide-de-camp, a battlefield hero, a member of the Constitutional Convention, the leading author of The Federalist Papers, and head of the Federalist party....

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin distills the complex and passionate intellectual strivings of the man whom David Hume called the first philosopher and great man of letters of the New World. Benjamin Franklin was a true renaissance man. A statesman and a diplomat, (he wa the person to sign all four major documents of the founding of America - The Declaration of Indepence, the Constitution, the Treaty of Alliance with France, and the Treary of...

Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche (1903-1971) was a statesman, peace negotiator, leading intellectual and scholar, and the first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize. An African American who overcame racial prejudice and poverty to become Undersecretary General of the United Nations, Bunche's life offers a unique window on many key issues and historical events that took place during the middle of the 20th century. This award-winning two-hour documentary...

Chronicles the founding father's life and his multiple careers as a shopkeeper, writer, inventor, media baron, scientist, diplomat, business strategist, and political leader, while showing how his faith in the wisdom of the common citizen helped forge an American national identity based on the virtues of its middle class.

A brief biography of the eighteenth-century printer, inventor, and statesman who played an influential role in the early history of the United States.

Benjamin Franklin is perhaps the most remarkable figure in American history: the greatest statesman of his age, he played a pivotal role in the formation of the American republic. He was also a pioneering scientist, a best-selling author, the country's first postmaster general, a printer, a bon vivant, a diplomat, a ladies' man, and a moralist, and the most prominent celebrity of the 18th century. Franklin was, however, a man of vast contradictions,...

"The prizewinning author of Founding Brothers and American Sphinx now gives us the unexpected story--brilliantly told--of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. The triumph of the American Revolution was neither an ideological nor political guarantee that the colonies would relinquish their independence and accept the creation of a federal...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “An excellent introduction to a critical period in the history of Rome. Cicero comes across much as he must have lived: reflective, charming and rather vain.”—The Wall Street Journal
“All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.”—John Adams
He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised...