From abortion to same-sex marriage, today's most urgent political debates will hinge on this two-part question: What did the United States Constitution originally mean and who now understands its meaning best? Rakove chronicles the Constitution from inception to ratification and, in doing so, traces its complex weave of ideology and interest, showing how this document has meant different things at different times to different groups of Americans.

Jack Rakove's history of the American Revolution stresses the ambiguous legacy of the revolution, a legacy that ranges from liberty & democracy to slavery. He explores the complex & contested genesis of the US, showing how the evolution was by no means inevitable & grew out the actions & interactions of many individuals.

Originally published in 1982. Despite a necessary preoccupation with the Revolutionary struggle, America's Continental Congress succeeded in establishing itself as a governing body with national—and international—authority. How the Congress acquired and maintained this power and how the delegates sought to resolve the complex theoretical problems that arose in forming a federal government are the issues confronted in Jack N. Rakove's searching reappraisal of Revolution-era politics. Avoiding the tendency to interpret the decisions of the Congress in terms of competing factions or conflicting ideologies, Rakove opts for a more pragmatic view. He reconstructs the political climate of the Revolutionary period, mapping out both the immediate problems confronting the Congress and the available alternatives as perceived by the delegates. He recreates a landscape littered with unfamiliar issues, intractable problems, unattractive choices, and partial solutions, all of which influenced congressional decisions on matters as prosaic as military logistics or as abstract as the definition of federalism.

Questions about the original meaning of the Bill of Rights remain a source of active concern and controversy in the twenty-first century. In order to help students consider the intentions of the first Constitutional amendments and the significance of declaring rights, Jack Rakove traces the tradition and describes the deliberations from which the Bill of Rights emerged.

The Unfinished Election of 2000 gathers America's leading historians, political scientists, and constitutional lawyers to examine the strange and unprecedented events of the 2000 election. Together, these essays offer an election book very different from the ones we are too familiar with: not a journalistic account of campaigning and media strategy but a reflective assessment of the strangest election in modern American history.

In Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jack Rakove makes broad claims about how religious freedom affects us. He contrasts the radical course of American developments with the more complicated ways in which Europeans tried to promote religious tolerance. He argues that both freedom of conscience and disestablishment were critical constitutional principles whose significance we no longer fully appreciate. Rakove explains why Jefferson's and Madison's understanding of these concepts were influential to their constitutional thinking. And he examines some of our contemporary controversies over church and state from the vantage point, not of legal doctrine, but of the deeper history that gave the U.S. its unique approach to religious freedom.

Here in a newly annotated edition are the two founding documents of the United States of America: the Declaration of Independence (1776), our great revolutionary manifesto, and the Constitution (1787–88). A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian serves as a guide to these texts, providing historical contexts and offering interpretive commentary.

From abortion to same-sex marriage, today's most urgent political debates will hinge on this two-part question: What did the United States Constitution originally mean and who now understands its meaning best? Rakove chronicles the Constitution from inception to ratification and, in doing so, traces its complex weave of ideology and interest, showing how this document has meant different things at different times to different groups of Americans.

James Madison presented his most celebrated and studied political ideas in his contributions to The Federalist, the essays that he, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay wrote in 1787–1788 to secure ratification of the U.S. Constitution. As Jack N. Rakove shows in A Politician Thinking, however, those essays do not illustrate the full complexity and vigor of Madison’s thinking. In this book, Rakove pushes beyond what Madison thought to examine how he thought, showing that this founder’s political genius lay less in the content of his published writings than in the ways he turned his creative mind to solving real political problems. Rakove begins his analysis by examining how Madison drew upon his experiences as a member of the Continental Congress and as a Virginia legislator to develop his key ideas. Madison sought to derive lessons of history from his reading and his own experience, but he also thought about politics in terms of what we now recognize as game theory. After discussing Madison’s approach to the challenge of constitutional change, Rakove emphasizes his strikingly modern understanding of legislative deliberation, which he treated as the defining problem of republican government. Rakove also addresses Madison’s deliberation about ways to protect the rights of individuals and political minorities from the rule of “factious majorities.” The book closes by tracing how Madison developed strategies for maintaining long-term constitutional stability and adjusting to the new realities of governance under the Constitution. Engaging and accessible, A Politician Thinking offers new insight concerning a key constitutional thinker and the foundations of the American constitutional system. Having a more thorough understanding of how Madison solved the problems presented in the formation of that system, we better grasp a unique moment of political innovation.

As the "father of the Constitution," James Madison's accomplishments are inseparable from the nation he helped create. From his early days in the state legislature of colonial Virginia to his two terms as president, Madison worked tirelessly alongside - and sometimes in opposition to - his political contemporaries to secure the future of a fledging United States. In this biography, author Jack N. Rakove examines both the life and legacy of this Founding Father, showing how the ideological foundation he helped build still supports our nation today