Explaining America

Rewarding reading. . . . A great contribution in helping us remember the time of the Federalist” from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg (Chicago Sun-Times).

From 1787 to 1788, Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay rapidly wrote and published a series of eighty-five essays under the pseudonym Publius. First known as the Federalist, and later the Federalist Papers, the influential essays are one of the greatest examples of political journalism in the English language. Together they argued for the ratification of the Constitution.

In Explaining America: The Federalist, author Garry Wills rigorously analyzes the work of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, clarifying it through the context of eighteenth-century America. He also demonstrates the impact David Hume and the Scottish Enlightenment had on the men’s effort to create a moral society. The careers of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay may have diverged in later years, but together they showed what is essential to defining American democracy.

“To read the Federalist afresh, as Wills has done, is to have hope renewed.” —The New Republic

“Wills’s discussion is erudite and closely reasoned.” —Business Week

“A virtuoso exercise in scholarship.” —The Washington Post Book World

Originally published in 1981.

Introduction added 2001.