James Madison

"Madison's presidency is the most neglected part of his brilliant career, since he was a great constitutionalist but not a great president. Yet it was a presidency interesting in itself, for the waging of the first war under the Constitution, and the problem of putting together the genius of political science and the feckless commander in chief is endlessly fascinating."—Garry Wills on James Madison

"[Madison] had already composed a brilliant defense of religious liberty, played a pivotal role at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and made an indispensable contribution to a series of essays (The Federalist) that served as foundational documents on the United States' constitutional democracy. But it is Madison as the nation's fourth president (1809-17) that is the subject of Garry Wills's short, finely written biography, and his achievements as chief executive are comparatively meager. 'How a man could be so shining in certain aspects of his life and so shadowed in another is not a question often asked,' writes Wills. He not only poses the question but makes his answer the provocative focus of his book . . . Wills's stimulating biography offers us a compelling reason to reconsider the presidency of James Madison."—James F. Simon, The New York Times Book Review

"Short and provocative . . . [Wills] presents an evaluation of Madison's successes and failures, finding both . . . And what is it that allowed Madison to be so great a constitutionalist and so poor a President? Wills argues that it was provincialism and naïvete: What Madison had learned from the great minds by reading books allowed him to understand political theory better, perhaps, than anyone else. But without greater worldly experience, even Madison could not operate the levers of power that he himself designed. Yet as Wills aptly concludes, 'Madison did more than most, and did some things better than any. That is quite enough.'"—Carl T. Bogus, The Nation

"Wills's book is the first volume to appear in the new American Presidents series edited by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Wills is amazing. He works fast and has the most remarkable range of any writer I know of working in America today . . . He has the admirable ability to read rapidly through masses of material, as he did in preparing this book, and to extract crucial n0 facts from this material and then give those facts his own provocative spin . . . Wills certainly has something interesting to say about Madison's presidency."—Gordon S. Wood, The New York Review of Books

"Historian Garry Wills takes on the seeming paradox of this 'genius of political science and feckless commander in chief' in his concise but solid James Madison . . . Wills's books almost always provide a bracingly fresh and clear understanding of the foundations of the American nation and system . . . His new volume throws a similarly clear light on the nature of democratic leadership . . . Wills's crisp analysis of Madison offers thoughtful answers that can illuminate current events as much as they do past history."—Ben Sargent, Austin American Statesman

"This relatively brief essay on Madison poses one central question, well worth asking. It is this: Why Madison's greatness as a political thinker—perhaps our greatest—whose moderation often, but not always kept Jefferson on the reservation and the early Union intact was not reflected in his presidency which is often judged to be a failure? That it was a failure is something Mr. Wills will convince any reader. But the reason is more complex and the author is good at laying out that failure."—Roger Fontaine, The Washington Times

"Wills is especially adept at laying open Madison, showing his strengths and shortcomings, then showing how those traits provided the framework for the presidency to help this country emerge from the war more united and more prepared to take a place on the world stage . . . Insightful."—The Roanoke Times

"Wills's analysis of the Constitutional Convention and the War if 1812 is particularly fresh and incisive."—Booklist (starred review)

"[A] thoughtful and sympathetic evaluation of the complex character that made Madison a great theoretician of government but a mediocre practitioner of it."—Kirkus Reviews

"Written with flair, this clear and balanced account is based on a sure handling of the material. It should appeal to general readers as well as specialists. Highly recommended."—T.J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure University, Library Journal

"It's tough to write a compelling biography of Madison: though a great politician, he was also a provincial, cerebral and slightly dull man; any account of his life must contain the kinds of dry legislation—the Non-Intercourse Act, Macon's Bill Number 2, for example—that have driven generations of history students to distractions. But Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Wills does as good a job as possible in this brief volume . . . Wills is well acquainted with his subject and balanced in his assessments. Madison, 'this unimpressive little man with libraries in his brain,' was the 'Father of the Constitution' and the nation's fourth president. But during an extraordinary four-decade public career, Madison also guided Washington and Jefferson in their presidencies; steered the pioneering Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom through that state's legislature in 1786 and the Bill of Rights through Congress, and helped Jefferson found the Democratic Party. But for all Madison's greatness, Wills nevertheless (and justifiably) judges him naïve, inconsistent, occasionally dishonest, prone to stiff conspiracy in any opposition, and, like so many Southerners of the time, deaf and finally paralyzed by slavery. To Madison's credit, unlike other wartime presidents, he didn't stretch the Constitution or invade civil liberties . . . Madison had 'the strength of his weaknesses,' concludes Wills in this fine, short biography of one of the nation's greatest public servants."—Publishers Weekly