The First Congress was the most important in U.S. history, says prizewinning author and historian Fergus Bordewich, because it established how our government would actually function. Had it failed-as many at the time feared it would-it's possible that the United States as we know it would not exist today. The Constitution was a broad set of principles. It was left to the members of the First Congress and President George Washington to create the machinery...

Washington, D.C., is home to the most influential power brokers in the world. But how did we come to call D.C.-a place one contemporary observer called a mere swamp "producing nothing except myriads of toads and frogs (of enormous size)," a district that was strategically indefensible, captive to the politics of slavery, and a target of unbridled land speculation-our nation's capital? In Washington, award-winning author Fergus M. Bordewich turns...