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Paperback, Large Print Edition
Published: 26th December 2023
Hardback
Published: 5th December 2023
Paperback
Published: 10th December 2024
Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics
By (Author) H. W. Brands
Diversified Publishing
Random House Large Print
26th December 2023
Large Print Edition
United States
General
Non Fiction
Biography: historical, political and military
Political leaders and leadership
Political parties and party platforms
Paperback
720
Width 154mm, Height 232mm
From bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands, a revelatory history of the shocking emergence of vicious political division at the birth of the United States. From bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands, a revelatory history of the shocking emergence of vicious political division at the birth of the United States. Founding Partisans is a lively narrative of the early years of the republic as the Founding Fathers fought one another with competing visions of what our nation would be. To the framers of the Constitution, political parties were an existential threat to republican virtues. They had suffered the consequences of partisan politics in Britain before the American Revolution, and they wanted nothing similar for America. Yet parties emerged even before the Constitution was ratified, and they took even firmer root in the following decade. The first party, the Federalists, formed around Alexander Hamilton and his efforts to overthrow the Articles of Confederation. Thomas Jefferson and the opposition organized as the Antifederalists, the precursor to the Republicans. The two factions wrestled as George Washington tried to remain above the fray. John Adams, however, our second president, was an avowed Federalist, and very much in the scrum. The country's first years unfolded in a contentious spiral of ugly elections and blatant violations of the Constitution. Still, peaceful transfers of power continued, and the nascent country made its way towards global dominance, against all odds. Founding Partisans is a powerful reminder that fierce partisanship is a problem as old as the republic, one we've survived time and time again.
A Kirkus Reviews Best History Book of 2023
"A compelling retelling...[Brands's] industry is intimidating, as is his ability to blend efficient research with solid prose. Brands puts these to good use in Founding Partisans."Washington Post
"Founding Partisans reads less like a work of history than a journalists insider account of high politics, except here the intemperate, backbiting quotations come from sources who are safely dead rather than anonymous."Wall Street Journal
"An engaging examination of the early period of the countrys history. But a reader cannot help but believe that this volume is intended to help Americans navigate the current brawl of politics. . . [Founding Partisans] illuminates the chinks in the American political system as much as the suppleness of it."Boston Globe
"The author writes with a sharp and absorbing style, turning what could be a fairly dry topic into a highly readable tale worthy of a cable miniseries with backstabbing characters, high drama, shady deals, and huge egos all clashing to determine the course of the new country. For anyone who thinks that gridlock and partisan machinations are a recent development, this book will quickly lay those misconceptions to rest."New York Journal of Books
"Mr. Brands has a genius for plotting out real events; a novelist could hardly do better"New York Sun
"As H.W. Brands reminds us in this absorbing new book, partisanship is an ancient, indeed perennial, force in human affairs. From the early hours of the Republic, Americans of good will have struggled to ensure that party feeling be not reflexive but reflective. On that distinction, the Founders understood, hangs the fate of popular government."Jon Meacham, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of American Lion
"An essential book for understanding the foundation of American partisanship.Kirkus Reviews *Starred Review*
"Revolutionary War buffs will relish this."Publishers Weekly
"Brands storytelling prowess preserves the debaters individual personalities and clearly constructs the grand narrative of the Conventions crafting of one of the political worlds greatest documents."Booklist
H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written more than a dozen biographies and histories, including The General vs. the President, a New York Times bestseller, and Our First Civil War, his most recent book. Two of his biographies, The First American and Traitor to His Class, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.