Some are instantly recognizable-Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson--while other figures will be less familiar. Standing beside George Washington is a man he enslaved, Harry Washington, for whom no image exists. Altogether, the figures represent different sides of the war, of the period's political ferment, and of early American society itself, and convey the ambition of this special issue: to capture the Revolutionary era in all of its complexity, contradictions, and ingenuity.
When I was 16 years old, I sat in a crowded assembly hall on a wobbly plastic chair, and I listened to Mr. Smith tell me why I should study history. All of the teachers had to do it. "Sell your subject," the headmaster had said. "Make the kids want to pick it." Some teachers did so with the grudging monotone of the forced and underpaid employee. Some did it with the exhausting energy of a fanatic.