Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics

The government in peril; with party divisions threatening to overturn the closely challenged results of a presidential election. H.W. Brands writes a great account of the “Revolution of 1800” that almost caused as much strife as January 6 did just a few years ago.

The author highlights the substantial differences in the attitudes in government responsibility of many of the most important leaders of the founding period which made it all the more challenging to craft a Constitution, Bills of Rights, and practicing federal government to which the 13 original states and the newly added states near the end of the 18th century could pledge their fealty. Sam Gurka

I just started reading this book as usual Brands writes a great book. Thank You

I've read the author's previous books, the main reason I ordered this one. Howwever, I believe the author should have interpreted the quotes in his style. The number of actual quotes merely interrupts the narrative, a number of which is not easy to fully grasp.

The author ably demonstrates that many of the men portrayed as unmitigated heroes in school lessons were possessed of the same petty partisanship, fragile egos and callous jealousies of modern-day politicians. But he does so with lengthy quotations from the writings of Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton and others, with minimal analysis. If you enjoy slogging through very long passages written in 18th century prose, this book is for you. I have a master's degree in history (with a BA from Brands' current academic department) and found reading this monograph very tedious.