"The wide-ranging lectures, papers, addresses, and studies collected in this volume, presented in sequence, offer a unique view of the way our knowledge and understanding of the American Revolution and its aftermath have evolved over the years. Drawn from talks given to the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey, the selections range in date from the late eighteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. In form, they range from ceremonious orations packed with classical references and scriptural allusions, through genealogical studies and independent research on little-known military clashes, to scholarly consideration of the stresses that played themselves out in the forming of our Constitution. Their evolution helps illuminate the American story."--Jacket.