Scott Martin's Reviews > Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics

(Audiobook) A solid, if not spectacular, work about how the earliest partisan divisions took hold in American politics. Covering the period from the end of the Articles of Confederation to the deaths of Adams, Jefferson and Madison, Brandis offers a synthesis of mostly known actions from American politics, noting that partisanship, while it was a goal of the founders to try to avoid, ended up defining early American politics. From the divides between those wanting the Articles of Confederation to those supporting the Constitution to the Federalists/Republican slugfests, this mainly shows that the partisanship of today is not that much different from the partisanship of the past. Not a lot new here, but maybe for those not as well schooled in US history, they will get the most out of it. Not a bad read, but probably not one to dwell on afterwards.