By Jack Rakove, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., New York, N.Y. 487 pages, $30
To borrow the title of a famous, indeed infamous American film, “The Birth of a Nation” describes the subject matter of “Revolutionaries,” in which Jack Rakove, professor of history and political science at Stanford, tells how the United States of America was born. For some readers the book will provide a refresher course in, for others an introduction to, a basic chapter of our history. Both categories of readers will learn much from the work and, this reviewer predicts, deepen their understanding of our system of government.
