Edmund S. Morgan is Professor Emeritus at Yale University, a recipient of the 2000 National Humanities Medal, and past president of the Organization of American Historians. Among his many distinguished books are The Birth of the Republic, 1763-89; American Slavery, American Freedom; Benjamin Franklin; and The Genuine Article.

There's simply no better way of comprehending Washington and Adams than reading this book.... Morgan is a supremely artful historian. Masking his commanding authority (in this and in his other books) is a puckish ease and an utterly smooth prose style that managers to be at once conversational and incisive. - Atlantic ""Characterized by the author's customary subtlety and penetration.... [The Meaning of Independence] represents an attempt to open up this complicated subject through separate portraits of John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson."" - Journal of American History ""With the wit, grace, and sense of irony we have come to expect from him, Morgan seeks to discover 'the meaning of independence' for the Revolutionary generation and indeed, for our own.... Morgan is not only a brilliant historian but a superb storyteller as well."" - Choice ""[Morgan] knows the eighteenth century better than most of us know our living room. His name is a guarantee of sound scholarship, and we can expect imaginative insight and meticulous and subtle presentation; we are not disappointed."" - History Review of Books