Young Patriots
The Remarkable Story of Two Men, Their Impossible Plan and the Revolution That Created the Constitution
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
The captivating story of Hamilton and Madison fighting the odds to forge a nation’s legacy
Seven years after the revolution, America was in crisis. The government didn't work, but the citizens didn't care—or were in a state of rebellion. Then two unknown men, Hamilton and Madison (unknown especially compared to the revered Founding Fathers), envisioned a plan that no one else thought could happen: a truly United States.
Against all odds, these men maneuvered and strategized to get the right men to agree on the right ideas. The result: the most brilliant political document ever, and a powerful United States.
From New York Times bestselling author Charles Cerami, this gripping tale of young men founding a nation will captivate both history buffs and those who just love a great story.
“Cerami spins a good historical tale.” —Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This engaging if shallow history of the making of the Constitution salutes Madison and Hamilton as the leaders of a coterie of dynamic young men battling a sclerotic old guard to construct a vigorous national government. This interpretation is not quite borne out in the text. Hamilton played a secondary role, and the new Constitution was actually championed by such pillars of the old guard as George Washington, on whom the author lavishes much adulation. And there's the question of whether Madison's crafting of the Constitution, an undoubtedly masterful political balancing act, was quite the work of visionary genius the author considers it. Historian Cerami, author of the excellent Jefferson's Great Gamble, gives an astute rundown of the political antagonisms and compromises embedded in the Constitution, noting its accommodations to slavery, its uneasy truce between state and federal power, and the backwardness of an independent presidency in comparison with British-style parliamentary supremacy. But he avoids the kind of deeper critiques of the Constitution made by Dan Lazare and others who view its mechanisms as antiquated. With Cerami's reverence toward the "sacred relic," this book falls short of a trenchant analysis.
