"How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history -- his political trajectory seems almost intentionally inconsistent. He was both for and against a strong federal government. He wrote about the dangers of political parties in the Federalist papers and then helped to found the Republican party just a few years later. And though he has frequently been celebrated as...

"A fresh portrait of Henry Kissinger focusing on the fundamental ideas underlying his policies: realism, balance of power, and national interest. The Inevitability of Tragedy is a fascinating intellectual biography of Henry Kissinger that examines his unique role in government through his ideas. It analyzes the continuing controversies surrounding Kissinger's policies in such places as Vietnam and Chile by offering an understanding of his definition...

"Co-authored by the Chief White House correspondent at The New York Times and the Washington columnist at the The New Yorker, this is a biography any would-be power broker must own: the story of legendary White House chief of staff and secretary of stateJames A. Baker III, the man who ran Washington when Washington ran the world. In the latter half of the twentieth century, no Republican won the presidency without his help, and the men he counseled...

Based on the children's book series Ordinary People Change the World by New York Times bestselling author Brad Meltzer and illustrator Christopher Eliopoulos, the series will introduce kids to inspiring historical figures and the character virtues that helped them succeed. It's time for Yadina to start first grade, but she's really nervous. Alexander Hamilton helps her realize that new adventures can be exciting. -- A leveled Reader based on an episode...

"From New York Times bestselling historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how America's second generation of political giants--Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Calhoun--battled to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and decide the shape of our democracy. In the early days of the nineteenth century, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning...

Broadway hit musical from Tony Award-winning composrer-lyricist-star Lin-Manuel Miranda. "Hamilton" is the acclaimed new hip-hop musical about the scrappy young immigrant Alexander Hamilton, the $10 Founding Father who forever changed America with his revolutionary ideas and actions. During his life cut too short, he served as George Washington's chief aide, was the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, a loving husband and father, despised...

"Trotsky is perhaps the most intriguing and, given his prominence, the most understudied of the Soviet revolutionaries. Using new archival sources, Robert Service offers new insights. He discusses Trotsky's fractious relations with the leaders he was trying to unify; his attempt to disguise his political closeness to Stalin; and his role in the early 1920s as the progenitor of political and cultural Stalinism. Trotsky evinced a surprisingly glacial...

"The America that Alexander Hamilton knew was largely agricultural and built on slave labor. He envisioned something else: a multi-racial, urbanized, capitalistic America with a strong central government. He believed that such an America would be a land of opportunity for the poor and the newcomers. But Hamilton's vision put him at odds with his archrivals who envisioned a pastoral America of small towns, where governments were local, states would...