Changes

Preceded by a short background note, a time-line and a cheat-sheet with the most important issues and terminology explained, the bulk of the volume is devoted to the biographies of the signatories. Each of those follows a standard format with a portrait, basic life information (dates of birth and death, age at signing, profession and a place of burial) and a short biographical chapter focusing – but by no means limited to - the signatory's role at the Philadelphia Convention. Each such a chapter has a headline, a one-liner that summarises his role (The Signer Who Overcome Religious Discrimination), a personal characteristic (The Signer Who Was Destroyed by the Drink) or another important or catchy aspect of the signatory's life (The Signer Known throughout the World). Some are more eye catching then useful (The Signer with the Mysterious Middle Name) and some are delightfully pithy (The Signer Who... Oh, There is No Way to Dance Around the Issue, This Guy Was a Crook). Thus introduced, the thirty-nine parade before the modern reader in their ''fame and misfortune'', affording a unique glimpse of the newly emerging elite of the New World and the document that immortalised them at least in name.