Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution

Setting the World Ablaze is the story of the three men who, perhaps more than any others, helped bring the United States into being: George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Weaving their three life stories into one narrative, John E. Ferling delivers a genuine and intimate illustration of them and, in doing so, gives us a new understanding of the passion and uncertainty of the struggle to form a new nation.

The three sections of Ferling's study chronologically examine major epochs in the lives of the three men: youth and early adulthood, the years surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and finally, defeat of the British in the Revolutionary War. Through the medium of comparative biography, Setting the World Ablaze attempts to link personal and impersonal elements in the contours of the American Revolution and the war that accompanied it. A professor of History at the State University of West Georgia and a leading scholar of the Revolutionary era, Ferling draws on a firm command of primary sources and his own expertise of the period to examine fundamental issues critical to our understanding of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, as well as of the historical period. He abandons the standard iconography and focuses instead on what motivated and inspired these three men as human beings. For example, what forces shaped each of the three during his youth, what was each like as a mature young man before public affairs and fame changed everything, and what determined their behavior as activists? John Adams emerges from the narrative as the most underappreciated hero of the Revolution, while Jefferson is revealed as the most eloquent but also most overrated of the Founders. Personal anecdotes from all periods of their lives add to Ferling's already rich portrait and give the reader a unique sense of how Washington, Adams, and Jefferson negotiated the many challenges they encountered throughout their lives. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack