Part I: The American Revolution. Rhetoric and reality in the American Revolution ; The legacy of Rome in the American Revolution ; Conspiracy and the paranoid style: causality and deceit in the Eighteenth century

Part II: The making of the Constitution and American democracy. Interests and disinterestedness in the making of the Constitution ; The origins of American Constitutionalism ; The making of American democracy ; The radicalism of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine considered

Part III: The early republic. Monarchism and republicanism in early America ; Illusions of power in the awkward era of federalism ; The American enlightenment ; A history of rights in early America

Conclusion : The American revolutionary tradition, or why America wants to spread democracy around the world.