Setting the World Ablaze

This work is the story of the three men who, perhaps more than any others, helped bring the United States into being: George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Braiding three strands into one narrative, Ferling brings these American icons down from their pedestals to show them as men of flesh and blood, and gives us a new understanding of the passion and uncertainty of the struggle to form a new nation. A leading historian of the Revolutionary era, Ferling combines a use of the primary sources with swiftly moving narrative to give us intimate views of each of these men. Ferling shows us the overarching historical picture of the era and provides a sense of how these men encounterd the challenges that faced them. At close quarters, we see Washington, containing a profound anger at British injustice within an austere demeanour; Adams, far from home, struggling with severe illness and French duplicity in his crucial negotiations in Paris; and Jefferson, distracted and indecisive, confronting uncertainties about his future in politics.