James Madison

James Madison was the fourth president of the United States and a principal architect of the Constitution. He helped write the Federalist Papers and Bill of Rights, led the early Republican opposition and served as president during the War of 1812.

John Jakes’s The Bastard places James Madison within a narrative shaped by family, marriage and personal loyalty, political ambition and government, and empire, conquest and resistance. John Jakes’s The Rebels places James Madison within a narrative shaped by social change and the pressures of ordinary life, military command and battlefield decision-making, and political ambition and government.

In non-fiction, James Madison is discussed in Gore Vidal’s Inventing a Nation. In Gore Vidal’s Inventing a Nation, in this work of political history, Gore Vidal examines the revolutionary generation through George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, while also considering Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.