Includes bibliographical references (pages 206-218) and index.

Introduction / Fifty-six traitors -- Franklin, Washington, and the rod / The founders in their own time: The founders -- Autobiography of a nation -- The most beloved man in America -- Wise Tom and Dusky Sally -- Did anybody ever see Washington naked? / The era of Jacksonian democracy: Who can tell how many Franklins may be among you? -- Man worship -- On strike for freedom -- Common sense -- This Fourth of July is yours, not mine / Abolitionists, feminists, and the Civil War: The book of fate -- Patriots of the second revolution -- All men and women are created equal -- The women of the American revolution -- The disease of democracy / Businessmen, Native Americans, and Populists: America at one hundred -- A century of dishonor -- Hamilton the hero -- Wall Street owns the country -- One hundred percent Americans / Immigrants and ancestors: A golden door? -- Our own heroes -- Wartime propaganda -- Closing the door -- A slobbery mass of flubdub / Debunking the founders: Squirrels in cages -- A constitution for the rich -- We are deceived by history -- Countries have no fathers -- Like the dark days of Valley Forge / The Great Depression and World War II: The year of Washington -- A new Jefferson -- The real Jefferson -- International conspiracies -- Fighting for liberty -- Jefferson's war -- I call upon you to be maladjusted / Prosperity and protest, from the fifties to the Vietnam war: Everybody ought to be happy every day -- The wonderful world of America -- The right to independent thought -- All men are created equal -- Liberty or death -- A time of extremism -- The spirit of '76? / From Watergate to the Reagan revolution -- and beyond: Nixon edition -- The Jefferson rule -- The buycentennial -- A new history -- Intimate stories -- Back to timeless principles -- Judging the past.

The history of our revolution will be one continued lie from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin's electrical rod, smote the Earth and out sprung General Washington. John Adams to Benjamin Rush, April 4, 1790. From the beginning of the American Revolution to the very latest talk show and court case, Americans have argued over the Founding Fathers. Not only have we questioned the motives, meaning, and purpose of their actions, we have fought over who they actually were: Only signers of the Declaration? Soldiers on the front? Women in the homes? Slaves in the fields? Who were the Founding Fathers? America was founded relatively recently, and by people whose lives we can trace. Deciding what we think of the Founders also means determining what we stand for as a country. As labor unions and company lawyers, Confederates and Abolitionists, American Nazis and American Communists, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X have sought to speak for America, they too have defined and redefined the Founders.