Revised and updated second edition of the most comprehensive encyclopedia of America's founding convention.

Now with nearly 400 new and updated entries and over 120 illustrations and maps, this revised and expanded edition of this impressive encyclopedia shows in detail the lively, contentious, four-month process that produced the United States Constitution. With fascinating detailed portraits of the Framers, we are taken behind the scenes into the fiery debates between powerful personalities and the hard-fought battles and compromises that resulted in one of the most important documents in history.

Drawing on original sources and a wealth of secondary works and recent scholarship, updated entries and dozens of illuminating side boxes present a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the Constitutional Convention.

Features include: - Two chronologies: day-to-day events at the Convention and important dates leading up to it - Detailed individual profiles of the delegates and excerpts from accounts of their debates - Information that brings the events of the Convention to life, such as the delegates' salaries, housing, daily schedule, how appointed, their backgrounds, their personal and legislative motivations, the mechanism of how the Convention and its committees worked - How the creation of states, their legislations, plans and constitutions all contributed to the final document - Analysis of Convention discussion of dominant historical and philosophical influences and themes and how and why they were included in the Constitution - A thorough appendix containing original documents and text of important speeches. - Suggested readings for each entry, cross-references, a topical table of contents, an up-to-date and thorough bibliography, index. These two volumes provide a complete guide to a pivotal moment in the formation of the United States - the Constitutional Convention - that created one of the most important documents in history, the United States Constitution.

JOHN R. VILE (Ph.D., UVA) is Dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University. His recent books include The Writing and Ratification of the U.S. Constitution (2012); The Men Who Made the Constitution (2013); Re-Framers (2014); The Wisest Council in the World (2015); A Companion to the United States Constitution (6th ed. 2015); Founding Documents of America (2015); Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues (4th ed., 2015); and The Early Republic (2016).