James Madison
America's First Politician
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James Madison
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Narrated by:
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Dan Woren
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Written by:
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Jay Cost
About this listen
An intellectual biography of James Madison, arguing that he invented American politics as we know it
How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history; his political trajectory seems almost intentionally inconsistent. He was both for and against a strong federal government. He wrote about the dangers of political parties in the Federalist Papers and then helped to found the Republican Party just a few years later. This so-called Madison problem has occupied scholars for ages.
As Jay Cost shows in this incisive new biography, the underlying logic of Madison’s seemingly mixed record comes into focus only when we understand him primarily as a working politician. Whereas other founders split their time between politics and other vocations, Madison dedicated himself singularly to the work of politics and ultimately developed it into a distinctly American idiom. He was, in short, the first American politician.
©2021 Jay Cost (P)2021 Basic BooksWhat the critics say
“A vivid account of Madison’s energetic efforts…Cost’s book deserves high marks as a skillful study of an iconic historical figure.” (Kirkus)
"Cost effectively reconciles Madison’s well-documented contradictions...a solid intellectual biography of one of America’s most consequential founders.” (Publishers Weekly)
"In this profound and clarifying biography, Jay Cost shows how some familiar Madisonian contradictions can be reconciled by grasping that James Madison’s practice of politics was devoted to the same great cause as his theories of politics: the challenge of reconciling differences in a diverse republic. That is very much our challenge now, and this is a book with much to teach today’s America." (Yuval Levin, author of A Time to Build)