THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1787

Much of this readable but bland narrative is given over to introducing each of the 55 Convention delegates and to a blow-by-blow detailing of their deliberations. Vaughan satisfies our curiosity about how the new Constitution differed from the Articles of Confederation and how ratification was accomplished, but he offers virtually nothing on the intellectual roots of the new system. And though the ""brilliant and original"" Federalist Papers are mentioned, this opportunity to quote and discuss them is never seized. The result is a sort of more cautious, watered down version of the events and personalities chronicled in Williams' Fifty-Five Fathers (1970). . . some information of interest, but awfully thin fare for the specially interested student who's likely to seek this out.