The most famous man of his age, Benjamin Franklin was an individual of many talents and accomplishments. He invented the wood-burning stove and the lightning rod, he wrote Poor Richard's Almanac and The Way to Wealth, and he traveled the world as a diplomat. But it was in politics that Franklin made his greatest impact.

Franklin's political writings are full of fascinating reflections on human nature, on the character of good leadership, and on why government is such a messy and problematic business. Drawing together threads in Franklin's writings, Lorraine Smith...

George Washington is revered as the father of his country, a clever and skilled general, and a man of restrained principle--but not as a political thinker. This short introduction to Washington's political philosophy reveals him as a thoughtful public intellectual who was well equipped to lead the young United States.

Though Washington left little explicit writing on political philosophy, Jeffry Morrison examines his key writings, actions, education, and political and professional lives. He finds that Washington held closely to a trinity of foundational principles--classical...

This concise, thoughtful introduction to the work of Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense and Rights of Man, explores the impact of one of the most influential minds of the American and French Revolutions and the sources from which his thinking evolved.

In Jack Fruchtman Jr.'s helpful interpretation, Paine built his argument for radical revolution in 1776 on a study of nature and Providence and a belief in natural rights. Men and women owed it to themselves to break the chains of rank, hierarchy, and even organized religion in order to live freely, embracing the...