Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations for Sources
- Preface
- Introduction: Madison's Legacy
- 1 Republican Opposition
- 2 The Federalist Agenda
- 3 Madison and the French Enlightenment
- 4 The Commerce of Ideas
- 5 The Politics of Public Opinion
- 6 Madison and Jefferson: An Appeal to the People
- 7 The Spirit of Republican Government
- Epilogue: The Philosopher's Stone and the Poet's Reprise
- Bibliography
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations for Sources
- Preface
- Introduction: Madison's Legacy
- 1 Republican Opposition
- 2 The Federalist Agenda
- 3 Madison and the French Enlightenment
- 4 The Commerce of Ideas
- 5 The Politics of Public Opinion
- 6 Madison and Jefferson: An Appeal to the People
- 7 The Spirit of Republican Government
- Epilogue: The Philosopher's Stone and the Poet's Reprise
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
About two years ago I was flying from Burlington, Vermont, to the Midwest. Across the aisle an older gentleman in jeans and a crisp plaid shirt, with weathered skin and hands not afraid of hard work, slowly turned the pages of a thick tome that rested on his lap. When we landed and stood to collect our belongings, I saw that the book he had been reading was David McCullough's John Adams. When I asked what he thought of it, he told me that he found it to be a fascinating account of a man and an age he previously hadn't known a lot about. He mentioned that he found in the character of John Adams a man worth getting to know. I nodded ever so slightly and returned the gentle, friendly smile of, I supposed, a New England farmer as we turned to exit the plane and go our separate ways.
At the time, I was working night and day on the manuscript that would become this book. My goal then, as now, was to come to know Madison as well as I could and to try to convey that understanding to others. I realized then that I also hoped one day a New England farmer would read my book and remark that James Madison was a man worth getting to know.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government , pp. xiii - xxPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009