America's Founding Fathers

The story of America’s founding—great men who debated, argued, persuaded, and negotiated their way to the U.S. Constitution—is as dramatic and instructive as any in the nation’s history. And there is no better way to tell the story of the Founding Fathers than by pairing an eminent U.S. historian with the very institution that is most synonymous with American history, the Smithsonian.

These men —Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and many others—are larger than life in our collective memory, having near-mythical status. Similarly, The U.S. Constitution is the oldest continually-operating instrument of government anywhere in the world serving as the backbone to the world’s most powerful democracy. Yet, few among us realize just how turbulent, contentious, even suspenseful the process was to draft and ratify it. That’s why The Great Courses and Smithsonian have joined forces to tell how this crucial drama in Western history unfolded.

Professor Allen C. Guelzo of Gettysburg College, whose Great Courses on U.S. history are among our most popular and highly rated, worked in close collaboration with the Smithsonian’s own curators of early American history to present a three-dimensional picture of the men who powered this unprecedented journey from colonies to nation and the resulting U.S. Constitution.

The truth is that the Founders were flawed, contradictory people with their own radical views on what America’s new government should look like. Through their lives, opinions, and deeds, one can see just how messy and rancorous a process was the formation of a “more perfect union.” By understanding this messiness, by seeing the creation of the Constitution as a process fraught with controversy and compromise, you can better appreciate just how much a miracle of government the U.S. Constitution is, and why we’re still arguing over it hundreds of years later. Now, more than ever, any well-informed citizen should understand how the Constitution lives, breathes, and endures.

America’s Founding Fathers is a deep dive into the creation of the U.S. Constitution as it actually happened – not as many are led to believe it happened. Professor Guelzo delivers 36 compelling lectures on the remarkable men who played their own unique role in the creation (and survival) of American democracy. Using the Founding Fathers as a lens through which to see powerful truths about the early political history of the United States, you’ll better understand both the document under which Americans live and the people who brought it into being.

Into the Forge of American Democracy

Designed as a chronological narrative and richly supported by images and artifacts from the Smithsonian’s unparalleled collections of historical Americana, giving you a multifaceted experience you can’t get without visiting the Smithsonian museums in Washington D.C., America’s Founding Fathers takes you from the closing days of the American Revolution to the opening decades of the United States under the newly created U.S. Constitution. While these 36 lectures are detailed, they are highly accessible for all learners, from high school students to retired history buffs.

Told like the dramatic, turbulent story that it is, each lecture uses an individual Founder as a doorway through which to examine the process involved in crafting the Constitution. Less a biography of individuals, Professor Guelzo’s course is instead a composite biography of one of the greatest political documents in history.

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