This groundbreaking book offers a major reassessment of the tumultuous culture of politics on the national stage during America's earliest years, when Jefferson, Burr, Hamilton, and other national leaders struggled to define themselves and their role in the new nation. Joanne Freeman shows how the rituals and rhetoric of honor provided ground rules for political combat, how gossip, print warfare, and dueling became accepted political weapons, and how the founders jostled for political power in the nascent republic.

Author Biography: Joanne B. Freeman, assistant professor of history at Yale University, is also the editor of Alexander Hamilton: Writings, published by the Library of America.