Richard Matthews argues that despite scores of books and hundreds of articles, Thomas Jefferson remains the most seriously misrepresented and misunderstood Founding Father. Matthews's Jefferson emerges as America's first and foremost advocate of permanent revolution, a democratic communitarian, and an anit-market theorist. this interpretation has been suggested in the past, but seldom has it been argued so persuasively or so intensely.

It is Matthews's intent to "extricate Jefferson from the myths that surround, envelop, and ultimately distort him." The interpretation of Jefferson's idea...

"What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

The ever wary James Madison viewed his fellow citizens as anything but angelic. In this radically new interpretation, Richard Matthews portrays a much less optimistic (and yet more liberal) Madison than we've seen before. Neither civic humanist nor democrat, this Madison is a distrusting, calculating, and pragmatic Machiavellian Prince.

Hardly an imposing figure, Madison was barely five-feet-six-inches tall, pale complected, a poor speaker, a perpetual...