Tony Williams

About The Author

Tony Williams is a Senior Fellow at the Bill of Rights Institute and one of today’s most widely read interpreters of the American founding. The author of six acclaimed works of narrative history, including The Pox and the Covenant, Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance That Forged a Nation, and Hamilton: An American Biography, Williams has built a distinguished career bringing early American history to life for general readers, teachers, and students. His books have been praised for their dramatic storytelling, meticulous research, and ability to frame historical moments within broader political and ideological currents.

Williams has spent more than twenty years teaching, speaking, and writing about the ideas that shaped the nation, with particular expertise in the Revolutionary era, the early republic, and the struggles to define American liberty. At BRI, he helps lead national teacher-training programs, authors curriculum materials used in classrooms across the country, and collaborates with partner institutions on civic-education initiatives reaching millions of learners.

A sought-after lecturer, Williams presents regularly at schools, historical societies, libraries, teacher conferences, and civic forums. His deep knowledge of founding-era debates—and his gift for connecting them to the civic challenges of the present—make him a vital voice in the country’s ongoing conversation about the meaning of the Declaration of Independence.

Books by Tony Williams

Divided Over the Declaration

How an Enduring Debate Sustains the Vision of America

On America’s 250th anniversary comes the story of our nation’s fiercest ideological struggle—over the Declaration’s true meaning— fought by the Founders, enslaved people, suffragists, civil rights leaders, and more, an enduring battle that has tested and reaffirmed the unifying principles of o...
BACK TO TOP