Customer Reviews

The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States (Modern Library)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This hardcover version of The Federalist (papers) comes is a nice package so to speak. The end of the book contains both the Declartion of Indepenence and the Constitution. Unlike most other Federalist papers books which are written as paperbacks using cheap newsprint paper, this uses a higher quality and brighter paper. The nice part about this book, unlike alotof others is that it contains the dates for each paper... alot of reproductions don't have this.

After reading the book however, I became quite concerned
because I noticed immediately that the author (intentionally or unintentionally) changed many of the words in the The Federalist!! This annoys me to no end. It's extremely bad practice for purposes of history, to change words in historical documents, because those "translated" words might accidentally get passed to future generations without aknowledgement that that wasn't what the founding fathers actualy wrote. I noticed at least a dozen changed words... there are probably thousands of errors for all I know.. This is bad, bad, bad.

Heres an example from Federalist Paper #1: (pg. 3)
This book writes: "After a full experience of the insufficiency of the existing federal government, you are invited to deliberate upon a new Constitution for the United States of America..."

Every other book in existence writes: "AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America...."

Notice the subtle, yet immensely importance difference in words.
Now what gives this dumb author the right as a scholarly academian to change the words of our founding fathers. In fact, I don't even know which version is truly correct?? (I assume the majority rules, so this book comes out the loser.)

And these errors continue right through Federalist paper #1, and several others that I noticed... Maybe even all of them!

Also, the author has a nasty habit of decapitalising words which should be capitalized in historical conext. Our founding fathers, as was customary grammar at the time, capitalized many words in the middle of the sentance. I don't fully understand the details of antiquated English, however, when I buy a book on historical figures, I expect, nay, I demand, that the reproduction be produced in exactly the manner in which it was presented by our founding fathers. It can be difficult to understand antiquated English, especially some of the stuff written by James Madison, however, I'd rather do the mental translation myself.

It's a nice book, but I cannot in good conscience give this
anything above 2 stars. In fact, I think it deserves no stars.

NOTE: After researching the matter a little bit, it occurs to me that there are actually two common distinct "translations" and this book presents just one of them.... so I take back blaming the editor. I'm not sure of the origin of these modern translations... but it does seem that this version is much less popular than what is presented in other Federalist Paper repros.
I still claim that this version is error.

"The Federalist" is a most important collection of articles that were (mostly) published serially in New York City newspapers beginning in 1787 as part of the public debate surrounding the creation and adoption of our Constitution. They were written under pseudonym Publius and this has caused some consternation over the centuries as to which articles were written by Hamilton, which by Madison, and which by Jay. While much debate is settled, there remain a few whose authorship continues to be debated.

It was later that these articles were collected and bound as "The Federalist". On two occasions, Hamilton made hundreds of emendations for new editions of the work. Later Madison made a list of the articles he thought he had written and this list is considered imperfect by most scholars. There were also other editions with changes introduced by those editors and then there were other editions that tried to combine different editions into a new edition. How the articles were selected from the various previous editions is not known.

This edition was edited by Robert Scigliano of Boston College. He provides an article on the debate about authorship with his own views on the subject and a note on the various source texts and why this edition incorporates "the McLean, the Gideon, and at least most of the Hopkins revisions". While this text is different in some small ways from many traditional texts, I believe that in this version the thought and argument of each article is clearer and quite readable.

"The Federalist" is a very important document for understanding the debate surrounding the Constitution considering the importance of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay in creating the document. Because of what they address they also give us a strong insight into the opposing views of the time and alternative views that had some impact on the final form of our most fundamental document.

However, it is important to not see these articles as somehow more authoritative than they are. While they certainly help us see into the thinking of those on one side of the debate, it is also clear that not everyone agreed with these views (not even all those who eventually signed the Constitution). Still, it is not possible to consider oneself sufficiently informed about our Constitution without reading these articles.

This is a nicely presented edition that I recommend.

This should be required reading for all students. As the centuries go by, it is easy to forget the intent of the founders. In this day and age, we rely upon what others think or what is published. To read the words written by Jay, Madison, and Hamilton, one can better realize the genius of the instrument and thus be more aware of our history.

This review is simply meant to correct any misunderstanding created by Mr. Hoffman's review of 4/13/2003. The text of the Modern Library edition is neither mistaken nor has it been tampered with by the editor. On the contrary, professor Scigliano explains in scrupulous detail how his text was derived, in a preliminary note.

In short, there were three authoritative early versions of The Federalist. The McClean edition of 1788 included corrections and minor revisions made by Alexander Hamilton to the text of the essays as they originally appeared in the newspaper. The Hopkins edition of 1802 included further minor revisions approved (but not made) by Hamilton. And the Gideon edition of 1818 added some revisions by James Madison.

The text in the Modern Library edition incorporates most of the revisions from all three early editions, in order to arrive at a version representing the authors' "final" intent. It is true that most modern editions of The Federalist are based on the McClean text (e.g., Signet, Oxford Classics, Hackett), because it represents the "original" intent of the authors. But, most of the revisions involve a single word, virtually all of them were intended merely to improve readabilty, and none affect our interpretation of the substance of the essays. So there are legitimate reasons to prefer either the McClean or the Gideon texts, in particular. If you want to be able to compare the different texts, the definitive Cooke edition (Wesleyan Univ. Press) is based on the original newspaper texts, with notes detailing all the revisions made in each of the subsequent editions. Take your choice: these are all good editions of an American classic.