John E. Ferling, professor emeritus of history at the University of West Georgia, taught at Lutcher Stark High School in Orange, Texas; Morehead State University in Kentucky (1965-1968); West Chester State University in Pennsylvania (1970-1971); and West Georgia College (now the University of West Georgia) (1971-2004). He is the author of 16 books and numerous articles dealing with the American Revolution and the Early Republic. Among these books are The Loyalist Mind: Joseph Galloway and the American Revolution (1977), A Wilderness of Miseries: War and Warriors in Early America (1980), The World Turned Upside Down: The American Victory in the War of Independence (1988), The First of Men: A Life of George Washington (1988), John Adams: A Life (1992), Struggle for a Continent: The Wars of Early America (1993), John Adams: A Bibliography (1994), Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution (2000), A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic (2003), Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (2004), Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (2007), The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (2009), Independence: The Struggle To Set America Free (2011), Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged A Nation (2013), Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War that Won It (2015), Apostles of Revolution: Jefferson, Paine, Monroe, and the Struggle Against the Old Order in American and Europe (2018), Winning Independence (2021). A Leap in the Dark won the Fraunces Tavern Book Award as the year’s best book on the American Revolution. Ferling has also appeared in several television documentaries devoted to the American Revolution and the Early Republic.