Join The Unfinished Revolutionour publication course by 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 take a seat for a portrait by the artist Gilbert Stuart. Stuart had painted the president earlier than, and Martha Washington was so entranced by the end result that she persuaded her husband to pose for him once more, on the situation that she would finally have the ability to personal the finished work. Stuart by no means saved his promise: Recognizing that he may make a fortune promoting copies of the portrait, he stuffed 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 value he charged Washington’s many admirers for a print.
As we speak, Stuart’s unfinished portray, generally known as the Athenaeum portrait, has grow to be one of the crucial memorable photos of America’s first president. (The portray, in a shocking occasion of deflation, later got here to adorn the one-dollar invoice.) In methods Stuart maybe by no means supposed, 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 wished to be.
In our November 2025 difficulty, The Atlantic revisited Washington and his associates, amassing a workforce of 24 journalists, historians, and critics to fill within the clean corners of American historical past and add texture to the elements of its canvas one may assume they know properly. Our publication course The Unfinished Revolution explores this particular difficulty 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 facet 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 aren’t 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 essential occasions within the historical past of the planet, and its beliefs proceed to represent hope and freedom for humankind.”
We hope you’ll be a 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 centered on a distinct chapter of our particular difficulty.
Like Stuart’s portrait of Washington, the undertaking of the US “remains to be unfinished, and troubled,” Goldberg concludes. “But it surely stays a undertaking value pursuing.”
