It was the time when hope beckoned to ageless despair; when the spirit of the Founding Fathers was still abroad in the American land. It was the era when high ideals walked by the side of high-handed politics. It was the dawn of our great experiment in liberty. It was the age of Jefferson. This is the history of our early golden age. In telling it, John Dos Passos interweaves the story of Thomas Jefferson with those of Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams, who followed him, and through whom he dominated the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Against the backdrop of these mighty figures, Mr. Dos Passos crowds his stage with a generous sampling of the scoundrels and scandals of the period: the Burr-Wilkinson filibustering plots; the bitter New England secession attempt, the unnecessary war with England.