Join The Unfinished Revolutionour publication course during which Atlantic writers and editors discover 250 years of the American experiment.
In 1796, within the waning months of his presidency, George Washington traveled to Germantown, Pennsylvania, to sit down for a portrait by the artist Gilbert Stuart. Stuart had painted the president earlier than, and Martha Washington was so entranced by the outcome that she persuaded her husband to pose for him once more, on the situation that she would in the end be capable of personal the finished work. Stuart by no means stored his promise: Recognizing that he might make a fortune promoting copies of the portrait, he crammed within the particulars of Washington’s face however left his canvas in any other case unfinished. He referred to as the portray his “hundred-dollar invoice,” referring to the worth he charged Washington’s many admirers for a print.
As we speak, Stuart’s unfinished portray, often called the Athenaeum portrait, has turn out to be one of the crucial memorable pictures of America’s first president. (The portray, in a stunning occasion of deflation, later got here to adorn the one-dollar invoice.) In methods Stuart maybe by no means meant, the clean corners of his canvas name consideration to the unfinished nature of Washington’s lifework, to an increasing nation that was nonetheless deciding what it needed to be.
In our November 2025 problem, The Atlantic revisited Washington and his associates, amassing a crew of 24 journalists, historians, and critics to fill within the clean corners of American historical past and add texture to the components of its canvas one may assume they know nicely. Our publication course The Unfinished Revolution explores this particular problem and options unique conversations from round our newsroom.
The difficulty’s 5 chapters take up the Revolution in all of its complexity and contradiction. Rick Atkinson reveals a brand new aspect of King George III. Caity Weaver fires a musket. Ned Blackhawk considers how Native nations formed the American conception of self-government. John Swansburg revisits the nation’s founding folktale. And because the American experiment endures a second of explicit problem, David Brooks argues that the nation wants a mass motion.
“You will note that we’re not simplistic, jingoistic, or uncritical in our strategy,” editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in his introduction to the problem“however we’re certainly motivated by the concept the American Revolution represents one of the crucial necessary occasions within the historical past of the planet, and its beliefs proceed to represent hope and freedom for humankind.”
We hope you’ll be part of us. Signal as much as start the course right here. You’ll obtain one version each week for 5 weeks, with every version targeted on a special chapter of our particular problem.
Like Stuart’s portrait of Washington, the venture of america “continues to be unfinished, and troubled,” Goldberg concludes. “However it stays a venture price pursuing.”
