The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President

A sweeping reexamination of the Founding Father who transformed the United States in each of his political 'lives'--as a revolutionary thinker, as a partisan political strategist, and as a president 'In order to understand America and its Constitution, it is necessary to understand James Madison.'--Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician he co-founded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning. Now Noah Feldman offers an intriguing portrait of this elusive genius and the constitutional