In a sweltering room, the founding fathers struggled for four months to produce the Constitution: the document that would define the nation—then and now. Here David O. Stewart traces the struggles within the Philadelphia Convention as the delegates hammered out the charter for the world's first constitutional democracy. George Washington presided, James Madison kept the notes, and Benjamin Franklin offered wisdom and humor at crucial times, but as Stewart makes clear, the Constitution was also shaped by Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, Edmund Randolph, and others largely forgotten today. The topic of slavery was frequently discussed, but as Stewart also shows, the issue was laid aside, with dire and far-reaching consequences for the nation. "In this engaging story of the momentous but little-understood summer that gave us the Constitution, David O. Stewart deftly reminds us what a close-run thing America was—and still is. Stewart's is an important work, written with insight and verve."—Jon Meacham