As a local history buff, I was pleased to encounter this book at the bookstore. Professor Madison does a nice job outlining Indiana's history in a way that the average arm-chair historian can understand without any difficulty whatsoever. The first section is devoted to the land and the early people who inhabited the land. He does a great job getting the geographical history down in a concise manner. It's easy to ramble about the topic, but Madison does a nice job of being brief, but also impeccable with content. He covers all the bases.
I particulary enjoy the social history, which talks about race-relations and also about people who helped form the State.

Most major events in American History are taken from the Hoosier perspective as well. While reading, you can tell that Madison has a particular love for the State of Indiana. He writes about it in such a way that demonstrates his admiration for the early settlers, but also he looks at them from a realistic point of view. He does not write history from rose-colored glasses, and writes in a honest and refreshing sort of way.

My only complaint would be that there needs to be more pictures. I do have to add that the photos included are obviously carefully selected, as they make silent statements in themselves. For example, the one of Klan members exiting a church in rural Knox, Indiana, or the one of a one-room delapitated school house in northern Clinton Co. He did a great job in selecting appropriate photos... I only wish there were more.

I took Indiana History at Indiana University from Dr. Madison and I loved the class. THE INDIANA WAY complimented the lectures very well. I learned a new thing from each chapter. Did you know that George Rogers Clark was an indian scalper? Did you know that the Confederates crossed the Ohio River during the Civil War? Did you know that in the 1920s the KKK had the governor in their pocket? Did you know that Wendell Willkie and Paul V. McNutt were in the same graduating class at Indiana University? I did not know these things before reading THE INDIANA WAY, and I cannot wait for the second edition to come out.

James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic 2nd Ed. written by Jack N. Rakove is more than a biography about James Madison our fourth President of the United States. Reading this book you get a real feeling for Madison and his philosophy.

As Madison firmly believed, his record as a statesman should be a record of public deeds, not gossipy tale of ambitions, achievements, disappointments and revelations. Madison took care in to preserve his political papers as well as to ensure that the details of his private life would remain forever hidden from posterity.

Thus, it was only in the conduct of public affairs that his deepest talents and interests found expression. Madison was a political thinker of his generation... in the task of creating the extended national republic of the United States, he had many partners but very few equals. Madison played a key roll in every significant development in national politics: efforts to ratify and amend the Articles of Confederation, the adoption and ratification of the Federal Constitution, the framing of he first amendments, the organization of the first opposition party, the initial controversies over constitutional interpretation, and the long diplomatic and military struggle that ended with the War of 1812.

Madison's distinctive contributions to the American constitutional tradition were first and foremost a reflection of his remarkable capacity to reason abstractly about funamental problems of political life on the basis of lessions drawn from experience. We see the author taking Madison and showing us how ideas that began with books were shaped and elaborated and reconsidered through the experience of revolutionary, republican, and constitutional politics.

James Madison does not resonate nearly as deeply in our historical memory. Yet his lasting achievements are arguably no less important. As Madison deepest legacy for the American constitutional tradition, he helped to create the understanding of these two distinct problems of majority power and minority rights.

This is an excellent book and it really gets into the conscience of Madison and it gives the reader some analysis of the potent legacy for the statesman named James Madison.

A must-read for any student of United States History. Rakove's writing seems as effortless as it is informative. I thought I knew James Madison after reading this book.

This is not only fascinating reading, but is a critical primary source for understanding our Constitution. This is Madison's first hand account of the secret proceedings of the Constitutional Convention. You'll see how the debate unfolds and understand more fully the difficulty of creating a governing document for our nation.

Most importantly you'll see the difficulty in divining the original intent of our founders. There were many intents and many "founders" of this important document. It is not surprising that many involved in the creation of our constitution could afterwards disagree on the substance of what different articles "meant." That is why the argument over original intent can never be resolved, and why, for better or worse, the Constitution remains open to interpretation.

Perhaps no work, outside of the Federalist Papers, is more crucial to understanding the US Constitution. Madison's Notes, drawn from those hot days at the Constitutional Convention show the building of our federalist system. From what was included, to what was rejected, to what was never proposed, Madison reveals so much.

He told us exactly what happened. No editorializing. No Political correctness. Lots of detail. Pure Honesty.

We get to see what the Constitution was meant to be from the point of view of the founders themselves. Before you read any popular media work on the Consitiution, Read this. You'll need to think a little, but well worth it.

--George Stancliffe

In this period of seeming upheaval in the American government, constitutional questions are thick on the ground and the least-used clause in that document is again being exercised. We'd do well to examine what actually happened so many years ago. Familiarity with the Constitution itself is not enough--indeed, it's never enough. To borrow a page from "Star Trek," we should know the thoughts of those 55 men as well if we are to truly understand what they intended for the United States.

"Notes on Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787" is the perfect source for beginning that exploration. If you want the information and the arguments advanced for each section of the Constitution, here they are. This volume is the actual journal of the Constitutional Convention, kept by James Madison (later the 4th President under that document). Preserved after the convention approved their work, it was later published. It still exists as an excellent source of political thought from the age of the Enlightenment; though the Declaration of Independence is more of a proof of those philosophies (based on the contract theory of David Hume), the Constitution was also influenced by these ideas, and represents a distillation of 18th-Century political theory.

It's not an easy read; it is, after all, a product of its time, written in a dense style, with antique language and grammar (to 20th century minds), by one of the best educated men in the Colonies. But even a leaping study of the highlights, the famous debates over the plans for how to establish the Congress, etc., repay the reader. Just an examination of the opening days shows that the representatives came prepared to essentially flout their instructions, throw out instead of revise the defective Articles of Confederation, and start afresh. Several members came prepared with draft proposals, and none appeared overly embarrassed to offer them. Seeing how many differences there are between the first drafts and the final Constitution is quite interesting.

Highly recommended, and all encourgement to the person who chooses this book.

January 27, 1999

This CD REALLY opened my eyes! The performance of the reader and the power of the music brought the words to life. I FINALLY understood the time & conflict our founding fathers went thru.

I wish they had presented this to me when I was in school! All I can remember was the Boston Tea Party was against taxes & the Constitution was a really successful intellectual experiment.

I've been loaning it to friends & have had trouble getting it back. They love to listen to it while driving, etc. Its very inspiring & uplifting

Words of Freedom: Men of Honor is a gripping dramatic rendering of historic American documents and quotes that timelessly inspires the whole world not just Americans. I would recommend this CD to any student, to any history buff, or even to anyone who has not studied History for years. I hope you find this program as thought provoking, alive, and entertaining, as I have.

An essential book for every American both young or old, male or female, Democrat or Republican. A delightful discovery on the need of God and guns (or perhaps swords) in the United States and the intolerance of a government in charge of all but answerable to noone. An undeniably perfect fit for todays culture.

Discover your roots from the men that gave their lives for the signing of the Constitution; true heroes. Their resolve was unquestionable and the love for country without reproach.

They brought us so far. We've walked away. Read it and weep. BK

I was fortunate to be one of the readers for this book before it was published. I found it to be very good and accurate. Maybe as the review above states every detail of Dolley's complex life is not examined but then again this is a book geared for young adults and not meant to be a comprehensive biography.

Kenneth M. Clark
Historian
The James Madison Museum

Because of the extreme scarcity of the original edition of Heroes and Martyrs of Georgia, few historians have heard of or utilized the book. This is unfortunate, for this volume stands as one of the most important published sources on Georgia troops in the Army of Northern Virginia. Included in Heroes and Martyrs are eighteen detailed histories of infantry, cavalry, and artillery units, most of them written in the summer of 1864 by Confederate officers in the trenches at Petersburg. The author of Heroes and Martyrs, James M. Folsom, originally intended on issuing multiple volumes that would chronicle the service of every military unit raised in Georgia during the Confederacy. Wartime exigencies, including the destruction of his manuscripts at the hands of Sherman's men, and postwar poverty prevented Folsom from ever completing his project. The one volume he was able to publish through the firm of Burke, Boykin, and Company of Macon, Georgia, appeared for sale in the spring of 1865, only weeks before Appomattox. Today fewer than a dozen original copies of Heroes and Martyrs are known to exist in public repositories. This new edition of Heroes and Martyrs of Georgia contains a new introduction and index prepared by Keith S. Bohannon, a doctoral student in the history department at Penn State University and a seasonal historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

This book was written in 1947 when Indiana was a very different place. Yet this book endures as a compelling and sometimes critical look at important people, times, and events in Indiana's history.

Martin tells about Indiana's beginnings: How people came to settle here, what those people were like. He shows how the Civil War played out in Indiana, where every fourth-grade student is now told that "brother fought against brother." He describes the poverty of Indiana farm life and how natural gas made many men wealthy, both in the late 1800s. He tells of the "golden years" in the early 1900s, as cities began to rise. And he explains the troubled years of the 1930s and 1940s, which were fresh in the memories of this book's first audience.

Martin's most compelling writing, however, is reserved for his portraits of colorful Indiana men: Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley, socialist leader Eugene V. Debs, infamous Klansman D. C. Stephenson, and others. The story of Debs is the best part of the book. Martin clearly sympathized with Debs, who championed the worker from his Terre Haute home and, later, from the Presidentail campaign trail and, finally, from prison. Debs's story is all the more interesting to me because I lived in Terre Haute for several years in the 1990s. My apartment was a mile or so north of Debs's home on Eighth Street, which still stands as a historical site. I can imagine the physical setting of Debs's Terre Haute activism as Martin relates it. But it is difficult for me to imagine the spirit of the city in those days, if nothing else because the city's current sleepiness stands in such stark contrast.

I have read that there is a second series of the Encyclopedia of Presidents, and I certainly look forward to seeing these informative juvenile biographies redone with better production values. These volumes always look to me like they were printed in the Fifties, which is actually three decades off of the reality. The cover paintings are rather cartoonish and all of the illustrations inside are in black & white so there is able room for improvement in how the book looks. However, if you are looking for information about a particular president, this is a very solid series from start to finish.

All of the books in the Encyclopedia of Presidents series begin in media res, in the epic tradition of Homer, with a highpoint from the President's career. In the case of James Madison we are talking about his role in American history as the Father of the Constitution. This means that Madison's greatest achievement in life was accomplished long before he was elected President, a truth usually reserved for war hero generals (e.g., Zachary Taylor and James Garfield) and Herbert Hoover (best Secretary of Commerce we have ever had). This is also reflected by the fact that Clinton devotes only two of the book's ten chapters to Madison's two terms in the White House, one for the First Term and the other for the defining event of his Presidency, The War of 1812.

The illustrations are mostly etchings and paintings contemporary to the life of Madison, including a couple of political cartoons, which are always a treat. But the chief strength here is the biographical detail. Clinton does a good job of contextualizing the Constitutional Convention and emphasizing the pivotal role played by Madison in the writing and adoption of the nation's most important political document. As far as juvenile biographies go this is not the first book I would recommend to a student, particularly a younger one, but once they have picked up a basic understanding of Madison's life and times from a smaller book, then this one is great for providing additional details and a more advanced understanding of Madison's importance as a Founding Father.