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A group portrait of America's first four presidents from Virginia focuses on a series of key historical episodes that illustrate how the myriad leadership roles of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe promoted transcendental, if contradictory, national views about freedom and equality.
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The third and fourth presidents have long been considered proper and noble gentlemen, with Thomas Jefferson's genius overshadowing James Madison's judgment and common sense. But in this revelatory book, both leaders are seen as men of their times, ruthless and hardboiled operatives in a gritty world of primal politics where they struggled for supremacy for more than fifty years.
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The narrative of America’s founding is filled with stories of godlike geniuses–Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson–versus the villainous Aaron Burr. Generations have been told that Burr was a betrayer–of Alexander Hamilton, of his country, of those who had nobler ideas. But that version has been shaped by historians and writers from the eighteenth century on, who were blinded by tabloid reports and propaganda created...
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An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, incisive portrait of the early days of the republic-and the birth of modern politics hen the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with Britain in 1812, Dolley Madison arrived, alongside her...
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"John and John Quincy Adams: rogue intellectuals, unsparing truth tellers, too uncensored for their own political good. They held that political participation demanded moral courage. They did not seek popularity (and it showed). They lamented the fact that hero worship in America substituted idolatry for results, and they made it clear that they were talking about Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. John and...
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"In Indivisible, historian and law professor Joel Richard Paul tells how Daniel Webster, a young New Hampshire attorney turned politician, rose to national prominence through his powerful oratory and popularized the ideals of American nationalism that helped forge our nation's identity. In his speeches, Webster argued that the Constitution was not a compact made by states but an expression of the will of all Americans. As these ideas took root, they...
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"Short, plain, balding, neither soldier nor orator, low on charisma and high on intelligence, Madison cared more about achieving results than taking the credit. To reach his lifelong goal of a self-governing constitutional republic, he blended his talents with those of key partners. It was Madison who led the drive for the Constitutional Convention and pressed for an effective new government as his patron George Washington lent the effort legitimacy;...
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"This book for young adult readers discusses the life of Theodora Burr, daughter of Aaron Burr, and her involvement in the lives of the Founding Fathers of the new United States. The book includes primary source observations pulled from Theodora's personal letters and other writings."--Provided by publisher.
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Library of America volume 276
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English
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This final volume of a comprehensive three-volume edition makes his important writings from the early national period broadly available to general readers. Bringing together letters, diary excerpts, political essays, speeches, and presidential messages, Writings from the New Nation 1784-1826 illuminates Adams's service as a diplomat in the Netherlands and England; his eight years as vice president under Washington; and his tumultuous single term as...
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"John and Abigail Adams sired the first dynasty to shape American politics, but they would not witness their family's calamitous fall from grace. When President John Quincy Adams died in 1848, so began the slow death of the family's political legacy -- a decline that mirrored the fall of the Republican Party. The Adamses would abandon their forefather's enlightened republicanism, yielding to the temptation of oligarchy and personal spoils. In Heirs...
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In 1776 the United States government started out on a shoestring and quickly went bankrupt fighting its War of Independence against Britain. At the war's end, the national government owed tremendous sums to foreign creditors and its own citizens. But lacking the power to tax, it had no means to repay them. The Founders and Finance is the first book to tell the story of how foreign-born financial specialists--immigrants--solved the fiscal crisis and...
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"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes a masterful, first-of-its-kind dual biography of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, illuminating their partnership's enduring importance. Theirs was a three-decade-long bond that, more than any other pairing, would forge the United States. Vastly different men, Benjamin Franklin--an abolitionist freethinker from the urban north--and George Washington--a slavehold-ing general from the agrarian...