Merrill Jensen was Vilas Research Professor of History, University of Wisconsin.

"This wonderfully rich volume challenges those who claim that political history is arid, narrow, or worse, irrelevant to our own concerns. Jensen's study explores popular political mobilization on the eve of American independence. It reconstructs the complex decisions that slowly, often painfully transformed a colonial rebellion into a genuine revolution. Jensen's well-paced narrative never loses sight of the ordinary men and women who confronted the most powerful empire in the world..." -- T H Breen, William Smith Mason Professor of American History, Northwestern University.

"After thirty-five years, Jensen's Founding of a Nation is still, by a good margin, the best one-volume history of the coming of the American Revolution..." -- John M Murrin, Princeton University.

"The Founding of a Nation is the best one-volume narrative political history of the American Revolution from 1763 to 1776. I have turned to it again and again for its clear, reliable accounts of events. It is a magnificent work by a master scholar based on an unsurpassed knowledge of the original sources..." -- Alfred Young, Senior Research Fellow, Newberry Library.