James Madison: America's First Politician

James Madison: America's First Politician by Jay Cost

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 first political 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 confused record comes into focus only when we understand him primarily as a working politician. We tend to emphasize his accomplishments as the political philosopher of the American founding -- but the same ideals that guided his thinking in these arenas shaped his practice of politics, where they were arguably just as influential. Whereas other founders split their time between politics and other vocations, Madison dedicated himself singularly to the work of republican politis and ultimately developed it into a distinctly American idiom. He was, in short, the first American politician.

Bringing together the full range of his intellectual life, James Madison reveals the president to be a coherent and unified thinker, a skilled strategist, and the inventor of American politics as we know it.

Basic Books, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2021