An Evening with Mr. Madison

After waking up from a quick cat nap, which have become much more common since I bring Ayu to work and pick her up at 12:30am, come home, go to bed and wake up at 6:00am, I'm up and about.

I've cracked open an Belgian witbier and after polishing it off, I'm going to sit down with this gentleman:



My last summer trip to America, I bought this book and have been chipping away at it slowly. Now that I've finished my course, I've found that I'm accustomed to reading at night and it feels weird not to. Additionally, thanks to the course I finished, a lot more of Madison's writings have opened up for me and I understand them a little better.

This book is extremely interesting as it was written during the late 1700s through the mid 1800s. Personally, I tend to think that the problems we face nowadays are very different from the problems of Mr. Madison's days. However, reading his works, he talks about usurpation of power, about the dangers of fiat financing, about the need for a federation of states (did you know that before the federation of states in Ameria, there was a Dutch federation which the founders looked to as a sort of blueprint??) and so on. Sometimes, some of his writings could be lifted from the book and printed in an opinion section somewhere about this problem or that.

Although some of the book is heavy reading with the formatting/lack of spelling/interesting grammar of Madison's day, the content really is fascinating. I suggest anyone who's interested in American history or political philosophy to give it a crack.

After working through this book, I want to pick up two other books in the series: Alexis de Tocqueville and Thomas Jefferson. After that, I'll see if anyone else sparks my interest.



Have a good night/day everyone!