In telling the story of the forgotten--if not deliberately ignored--role of faith in America's genesis, Michael Novak probes the innermost religious conviction of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and others who helped the American eagle take flight, including some of the lesser-known Founders whose reputation has dimmed with the passage of time. These founders were not "Deists," Novak shows, but shared an underlying "Hebrew metaphysics" of contingency, openness and liberty.

Michael Novak is the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at AEI.