The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics) by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Clinton Rossiter Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics)
Book Review: Pro-corporate
Summary: 2 Stars
"Federal", as in "federation" and "league", relates to commercial entities and commercial contract. Keep in mind, the United States is not a country but a corporation with no jurisdiction outside it's "ten mile square" district and the 18 enumerated functions of Congress Assembled (aka The United States).Book Review: The Kindle Edition leaves a lot to be desired!
Summary: 1 Stars
A problem with the reviews posted here is that they're generally not the reviews of the Kindle editions of these books. The signer edition of the Federalist Papers is one of the best, but the Kindle edition is not.
The table of contents is off. If you click on Federalist No. 10, you get Federalist No. 9. They seem to be one off starting with Federalist No. 6.
The index shows subjects but doesn't indicate where it is. The index is one of the best features of the print edition since it's very thorough.
The copy of the Constitution included in the print edition and advertised in the table of contents in this edition is supposed to show references to the relevant Federalist Paper for each section. Those are lost as well.
This is the most expensive Kindle edition of the Federalists, and really you would probably better off just emailing yourself the Project Gutenberg txt file of the Federalist.
This is the second Kindle edition of a classic text I bought where the publisher did a very poor job of creating a Kindle edition.
Book Review: Not Exactly Pleasure Reading!
Summary: 5 Stars
Buy this book only if you want to move along the road toward knowledge and away from ignorance. I find it a tough read but an essential read if you want to understand a conservative's aversion to destroying the best Constitution ever written. If you are older than 21 years and still believe in liberal interpretations, the "papers" may help you develop a more reverant view of our real rights and the fears of the framers. A slow (almost required) read should alert you to the dangers of "finding" a right not intended or even remotely obvious in this great document (the Constitution of the United States). Book Review: The Federalist Papers
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the three or four most important books in English published since 1776. All candidates for federal office should be required to pass a comprehensice essay exam on the Federalist Papers.Applicants for citizenship should be tested on this book.Book Review: Very Useful Book, Not A Perfect Edition
Summary: 4 Stars
The Federalist Papers is without a doubt a necessary compilation of rhetoric trying to bring out all the positive aspects of the American Constitution (as well as to discredit some of the criticism it received) for any individual considering himself politically enlightened. Far too many times you will be likely to encounter someone who is completely unfamiliar with notions like executive prerogative and is in utter bewilderment where Bush, for example, gets off with such ideas as the recent wiretaps. The abstract justification for such cases is among the countless other arguments provided by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay within these pages, and though one may disagree with them, they are nonetheless important to know and understand. They are hardly perfect, and many, such as Hamilton's attempt to justify the absence of a Bill of Rights, show that these articles sought to employ every argument available to make it seem that the Constitution was a paragon of a social contract (rather than a document meticulously written as a result of numerous compromises with little universal ideological consistency), but they are nonetheless important to have in one's library.
Of course, it's easy to find every single one of them online for free, not to mention all the other documents this edition adds on, such as the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. It is a good thing, then, that this edition is so cheap, as it is certainly convenient to have them all in a relatively small book that preserves all your markings. The edition also tries to overcome this burden of free access to its material through a masterfully written introduction, through a table of contents that briefly summarizes the argument contained within each article, and through the numerous footnotes that concisely expand upon the many now archaic references to the Romans and the Classics that Publius tends to make. For these reasons, I find having this precise copy of the Federalist Papers worth the 7 or so bucks that it costs.
The one thing I dislike about it, and why I give it 4 stars rather than 5, is that the paper and ink are almost of newspaper quality, so that extensive reading will tend to leave black markings on one's fingers. This does get annoying when writing papers about it and flipping around its pages.