Professor of history, Northwestern University

Most overrated:

Harry S. Truman. The dropper of the bombs, the founder of the CIA, the father of the Attorney General’s list: he deserves worse than he has gotten.

Most underrated:

James Wilson. A signer of the Declaration, the author of Pennsylvania’s improved constitution of 1790, a principal drafter of the federal Constitution, the principal ratifier of it, and the profoundest theorist of it, Wilson is the least known of the great founders.