In James Madison and the Making of America, historian Kevin
Gutzman looks beyond the way James Madison is traditionally seen—as
"The Father of the Constitution"—to find a more complex and sometimes
contradictory portrait of this influential Founding Father and the ways
in which he influenced the spirit of today's United States. Instead of
an idealized portrait of Madison, Gutzman treats listeners to the
flesh-and-blood story of a man who often performed his founding deeds in
spite of himself: Madison's fame rests on his participation in the
writing of The Federalist Papers and his role in drafting the
Bill of Rights and Constitution.Today, his contribution to those
documents is largely misunderstood. Madison thought that the Bill of Rights
was unnecessary and insisted that it not be included in the
Constitution, a document he found entirely inadequate and predicted
would soon fail. He helped to create the first American political
party, the first party to call itself "Republican", but only after he
had argued that political parties, in general, were harmful. Madison
served as Secretary of State and then as President during the early
years of the United States and the War of 1812; however, the American
foreign policy he implemented in 1801–1817 ultimately resulted in the
British burning down the Capitol and the White House.In so many ways,
the contradictions both in Madison's thinking and in the way he governed
foreshadowed the conflicted state of our Union now. His greatest
legacy—the disestablishment of Virginia's state church and adoption of
the libertarian Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—is often omitted
from discussion of his career. Yet, understanding the way in which
Madison saw the relationship between the church and state is key to
understanding the real man. Kevin Gutzman's James Madison and the Making of America promises to become the standard biography of our fourth President.
A major new biography-an extraordinary, penetrating study of the man who has become the personification of evil.
For all the literature about Adolf Hitler there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds ...
In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman and leader can finally be fully seen and understood--by the bestselling, award-winning author of Napoleon and The Storm of WarWhen...
Now a Major Motion Picture starring Dame Judi Dench from director Stephen Frears.History’s most unlikely friendship—this is the astonishing story of Queen Victoria and her dearest companion, the young Indian Munshi Abdul Karim.In the twi...
Mongol leader Genghis Khan was by far the greatest conqueror the world has ever known. His empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to central Europe, including all of China, the Middle East, and Russia. So how did an illiterate nomad rise to such co...
The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the New York Times bestselling author of The Storm of WarAusterlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military ge...
From an eminent scholar of the American South, the first full-scale biography of Thomas Jefferson since 1970 Not since Merrill Peterson's Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation has a scholar attempted to write a comprehensive biography of the most co...
From the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, and KrakatoaWriting with marvelous brio, Simon Winchester first serves up a lightning history of the English language and pays homage to the great dictiona...
The thrilling family saga of five unforgettable women who remade EuropeFrom the great courts, glittering palaces, and war-ravaged battlefields of the seventeenth century comes the story of four spirited sisters and their glamorous mother, Elizabeth...
With empathy and authority gained from his own experience with depression, Shenk crafts a nuanced, revelatory account of Lincoln and his legacy, and in the process unveils a wholly new perspective on how our greatest president guided America through...
{"id":"798036","ean":"9781452676340","abr":"Unabridged","title":"James Madison and the Making of America","subtitle":"","author":"Kevin R. C. Gutzman","rating_average":"0","narrator":"Arthur Morey","ubr_id":"798036","abr_id":"0","ubr_price":"20.99","abr_price":"0.00","ubr_memprice":"12.59","abr_memprice":"0.00","ubr_narrator":"Arthur Morey","abr_narrator":"","ubr_length":"Unabridged: 16 hr","abr_length":"Abridged: "}
