Papers of James Madison
Papers of James Madison

Madison's Ideas

The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Creation of the Federal Republic, 1780-l792For readers interested in Madison's ideas, we recommend:

  • Lance Banning, The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Creation of the Federal Republic, 1780-1792 (Ithaca, 1995)
  • Jeremy D. Bailey, James Madison and Constitutional Imperfection (New York, 2015)
  • Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Chapel Hill, 1980)
  • Jack N. Rakove, A Politician Thinking: The Creative Mind of James Madison (Norman, 2017)
  • Colleen A. Sheehan, The Mind of James Madison: The Legacy of Classical Republicanism (Cambridge, 2015)

For a critique of Madisonian liberalism, see Richard K. Matthews, If Men Were Angels: James Madison and the Heartless Empire of Reason (Lawrence, Kans., 1995).