James Madison By Gary Wills: Summary

Gary Wills is the author of the book James Madison, which details the life of James Madison through his career as a politician. The focus of the book is Madison’s presidency, which Wills brings to the forefront as the major topic. Wills states that most other books do not focus on Madison’s presidency saying, “Madison’s very presidency is semi-forgotten. When Madison expert Jack N. Rakove published a selection of his writings in 1999, only 40 of its 864 pages came from his presidential years.” (Wills, p.1). Wills believes that this disregard of the presidency is because most believe Madison was not a great president and that his political career apart from the presidency was much more interesting and successful. Wills also goes on to provide more examples of books that provide the same outcome; Gilpin’s Papers of James Madison omitted his presidential years completely and Rakove’s brief Madison biography had 24 pages dedicated to the presidency out of 180 pages (Wills p.1). Wills believes that this treatment of Madison’s presidency is unfair and that just because Madison’s presidency is not considered to be great does not mean that it is not historically significant. This is the main reason Wills wrote James Madison. A brief background …show more content…
Wills writes extensively on both, and dives in to Madison’s presidency just as he promised he would do. The first section, which details Madison’s first term, mainly focuses on partisanship and domestic affairs. There were multiple factions during Madison’s presidency, which Wills explains, in the fifth chapter. This created a tough road for Madison when he wanted almost anything done for the United States. One of Madison’s largest issues was moving the United States into war. The internal affairs (being the partisanship) paired with the foreign affairs (Madison maneuvering into war) created a presidency where the people were split multiple