Richard Rosenfeld's dramatic epic traces the incendiary history of the young American nation in the 1790s, and chronicles the birth and near-death of civil liberties in that turbulent decade. Rosenfeld, who has exhaustively examined the Philadelphia Aurora, has chosen as his heroes its two young editors, Benjamin Bache, Benjamin Franklin's grandson, and William Duane, who fearlessly waged a decade-long campaign to keep America's Founding Fathers true to their original mission.

They claimed that George Washington was not the true "father of his country," but a completely incompetent commander-in-chief, and that John Adams, his presidential successor, wanted a monarchy and was plotting to be king. As a result of their inflammatory articles, both editors were arrested. Bache died awaiting trial, and the paper was briefly silenced.

Nonetheless, the Aurora was eventually successful in persuading the nation to oust Adams and to usher in a Jeffersonian democracy, of which Benjamin Franklin, the true father of our country, could only dream.