Bøger af Forrest McDonald

The aim of the American Presidency Series is to present historians and the general reading public with interesting, scholarly assessment of the various presidential administrations. These interpretive surveys are intended to cover the broad ground between biographies, specialized monographs, and journalistic accounts.

In provocative essays Forrest McDonald and his wife, Ellen Shapiro McDonald, cover a range of the intellectual, political, military, and social history of the eighteenth century to present a picture of the age in which the US Constitution was crafted and commentary on developments that have caused government to stray from the Founders' principles.

This work provides an exploration of the issues and events defining the tension between nation, authority and the doctrine of states' rights.

"An admirable series of succinct critical histories."

We the People fills in the details that Charles Beard had overlooked in his fragmentary book, An Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution.

Charles A. Bear's An Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution was a work of such powerful persuasiveness as to alter the course of American historiography

Forrest McDonald is the NEH's sixteenth Jefferson Lecturer, an eminent historians and the author of numerous works on the early American republic, the Constitution, and the American presidency. Here he recounts and reconsiders his own career, mixing in equal measure autobiography with a sharp critique of the historical craft.

'A witty and energetic study of the ideas and passions of the Framers.' - New York Times Book Review'An important, comprehensive statement about the most fundamental period in American history. It deals authoritatively with topics no student of American can afford to ignore.' - Harvey Mansfield, author of the Spirit of Liberalism

The founders of the American republic were ardently concerned with the judgment of posterity. Had they known what a fickle muse Clio would prove to be, they might have been more anxious. The making of myths and legends, complete with a hagiology and demonology, is inherent in the process of evolution toward nationhood. Consequently, individual actors in the original drama have often been consigned by History to roles they did not actually play, and the most important of them have played shifting roles, being heroes in one generation and villains in the next. It is therefore not surprising that Alexander Hamilton-along with Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison-has had his ups and downs at the hands of historians.

This is an essay on the ambiguities and dilemmas of the American presidency. It offers observations on the issues and controversies surrounding high office, questioning what a president does, and by what right he or she does it.