“Becoming Madison is superb. The history is lively and engaging. But Michael Signer’s greatest contribution is to turn a biography of Madison into a manual on leadership that is as relevant and valuable today as it was 200 years ago.”
—Anne-Marie Slaughter, Director of Policy Planning, U.S. State Department, 2009–2011 and President and CEO, New America Foundation
“For centuries James Madison has been overshadowed by the more striking and charismatic members of America’s founding generation. And Madison’s youth has been even less well known than his maturity. Michael Signer goes far toward filling this historical gap with an engaging, insightful account of how the unassuming young Madison became the hero of the Constitution.”
—H. W. Brands, University of Texas at Austin, author of Andrew Jackson, His Life and Times and The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace
“James Madison would be called a ‘flip-flopper’ in today’s political climate. Thank God he changed his mind and concluded that adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution was not just good politics but necessary policy. This is just one of the wonderful aspects of James Madison’s life that Michael Signer captures so well in this important biography. Our nation owes huge debts to Madison, and today’s civic leaders owe a huge debt to Signer for reminding us why.”
—United States Senator Tim Kaine
“This engagingly written, carefully researched book is the fullest account we have of the development of Madison’s thought and statesmanship through the promotion and drafting of the Constitution to the greatest triumph of his life, the ratification of the Virginia Convention of 1788. Signer shows how there, in face-to-face debate with Patrick Henry, Madison proved what John Marshall termed Madison’s unmatched ability to convince could overcome Henry’s supreme power to persuade. This capacity characterized Madison’s style and career in a way that allowed him to become the master philosopher and practitioner of Lincoln’s Union ‘conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all . . . are created equal.’ Signer also shows brilliantly how Madison’s studies at Princeton under John Witherspoon began an influential and revealing partnership in public spirited citizenship for good government. Altogether the book brings us closer to understanding how Madison became able to be, all things considered, the father of the Constitution.”
—Ralph Ketcham, Maxwell Professor Emeritus of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, author of James Madison: A Biography
“One of the great contributions of Michael Signer’s Becoming Madison is the relevance of Madison’s role in the epochal debates surrounding the birth of our nation to the issues we face today, especially Madison’s commitment to attacking ideas rather than individuals. (Would that we now had more such advocates.) Signer helps us better understand how Madison’s towering intellect and unquenchable passion for the principled tenets necessary to create a lasting republic forged his character, and how he related to the other, better known, giants of his time, particularly to Patrick Henry. The way Signer captures the palpable tension, vitriol, and passion in Madison’s war of words and ideas with Henry is masterful. The reader can’t help but wonder, if it hadn’t been for the tenacity of Madison, would we have truly become the UNITED States of America?”
—Charles S. Robb, former Virginia Governor and United States Senator
“Michael Signer’s Becoming Madison offers a gripping portrait of the emergence and development of the leadership of one of our country’s great architects. We are wonderfully reminded of the power of a single person’s passion, humility, and statesmanship in shaping a nation’s destiny.”
—Michael Useem, Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership and Change at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
“In this highly readable and often insightful treatment, Signer colors in the portrait, finding the essential Madison in the young man.... A perfect introduction to a deeply private and immensely important man.”
—Kirkus