Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
65 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic, August 19, 2002
James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic 2nd Ed. written by Jack N. Rakove is more than a biography about James Madison our fourth President of the United States. Reading this book you get a real feeling for Madison and his philosophy.As Madison firmly believed, his record as a statesman should be a record of public deeds, not gossipy tale of ambitions, achievements, disappointments and revelations. Madison took care in to preserve his political papers as well as to ensure that the details of his private life would remain forever hidden from posterity. Thus, it was only in the conduct of public affairs that his deepest talents and interests found expression. Madison was a political thinker of his generation... in the task of creating the extended national republic of the United States, he had many partners but very few equals. Madison played a key roll in every significant development in national politics: efforts to ratify and amend the Articles of Confederation, the adoption and ratification of the Federal Constitution, the framing of he first amendments, the organization of the first opposition party, the initial controversies over constitutional interpretation, and the long diplomatic and military struggle that ended with the War of 1812. Madison's distinctive contributions to the American constitutional tradition were first and foremost a reflection of his remarkable capacity to reason abstractly about funamental problems of political life on the basis of lessions drawn from experience. We see the author taking Madison and showing us how ideas that began with books were shaped and elaborated and reconsidered through the experience of revolutionary, republican, and constitutional politics. James Madison does not resonate nearly as deeply in our historical memory. Yet his lasting achievements are arguably no less important. As Madison deepest legacy for the American constitutional tradition, he helped to create the understanding of these two distinct problems of majority power and minority rights. This is an excellent book and it really gets into the conscience of Madison and it gives the reader some analysis of the potent legacy for the statesman named James Madison.
|
|
|
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very well-written short biography of Madison, February 14, 2005
Initially, I had reservations about reading such a short book on such a complex and important figure as James Madison. Indeed, there are aspects of Madison's life that Rakove should have written more, particularly Madison's personal life and his famous, life-of-the-party wife, Dolly.
On the other hand, the book spends a lot of time on Madison's role during the Revolution and his role in creating the Constitution. Writing about these important subjects is potentially very difficult, very tedious and complex. And to his credit, Rakove does a good job making the pages easy to read and thoughtful.
The section on the War of 1812, which was conducted while Madison was president and almost ruined the country, was rivetting. I imagine a longer book would have spent even more time on this subject, not to take anything away from Rakove's coverage.
Ideally, Madison should be covered in a much more substantial book, like Ketcham's, but the reviews of Ketcham's book weren't all that good from Amazon readers, so I chose Rakove's book. It so happens, that hidden in the middle of a large list of sources at the end of his book, Rakove mentions that the Ketcham book is the best single volume work on Madison.
Additionaly, a docent at Mountpelier left a review of Ketcham's book saying that it is excellent. It is heavily used and bookmarked at Montpelier...so the Ketcham book is probably OK to read, if you want a more substantial read. It may even be excellent.
Lastly, Rakove's book was easy to read as a whole and relatively "complete". More importantly, even though some subjects could have been fleshed out more, the most important subjects were covered well. This wasn't a shallow book. There was a lot of primary source material that was very well integrated. It is a very well-written and researched book.
4 and 1/2 stars is probably more like it, but we'll round up to 5 based on quality.
|
|
|
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Biography of a Man and his Ideas, September 6, 2005
This short little book chronicles two things, though in sketches only: the life of James Madison and the story of his ideas. With this book Rakove does and excellent job of capturing both.
Rakove follows Madison through his service to the Virginia House, where he wrote a landmark bill separating church from state in his home state. After that we follow Madison to the Continental Congress and then the U.S. congress, where he takes the lead in drafting what would become the United States Constitution. Rakove then gives a tour of Madison's role in the early years of the Federal government, in the House and then as secretary of state and then president. While these were certainly tumultuous years, especially during the War of 1812, where there was legitimate concern about the survival of the Union, Madison was able to weather it all while holding close to his political principles.
These principles included an attachment to individual and minority rights and the preservation of the Federal Union above all. This little book gives and excellent depiction of those principles in action. I highly recommend it.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by Dr. Ralph Ketcham PhD
by Solomon Northup
by James M. McPherson
