Making of the American Republic seeks to provoke readers to think about the implications of the American Revolution in a new way, offering a larger interpretive theme other than the rise of democracy. This interpretive book places the events, the people, and the ideas of the period within the context of how the American Revolution gave birth to a dynamic capitalist economic system. The book argues that out of the democratic impulses of the era emerged an aggressively entrepreurial American social order. Provides a synthesis, covering the fundamental details of history, while providing a larger statement of the meaning of the changes in the period. Includes detailed portraits of Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson, as well as descriptions of how ordinary people lived. For the study of the American Revolution and the Early Republic to 1815.