When the Revolutionary War ended, there remained a stupendous problem: establishing a democratic government in the newly independent country. As Winston Groom recounts here, three men played especially significant roles: John Adams, the brilliant, dour New Englander; Thomas Jefferson, the aristocratic Southern renaissance man; and Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the Caribbean. Their lives could not have been more different, and their relationships with each other were rife with animosity. But through it all, Groom emphasizes, they shouldered the burden of creating the United States of America, putting aside their differences to make a great country.