Richard Brookhiser

George Washington on leadership

Chronicles the life and career of the fourth American president, including his work constructing the U.S. Constitution, his role in shaping American politics, his influence on partisan journalism, and his leadership during the War of 1812.

James Madison

Explores the life and times of an American founding father, who grew from an impoverished immigrant to a patriot, war hero, Secretary of the Treasury, and a man whose vision helped shape America.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON, American

Abraham Lincoln grew up in the long shadow of the Founding Fathers. Seeking an intellectual and emotional replacement for his own taciturn father, Lincoln turned to the great men of the founding—Washington, Paine, Jefferson—and their great documents—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution—for knowledge, guidance, inspiration, and purpose. Out of the power vacuum created by their passing, Lincoln emerged from among his peers as the true inheritor of the Founders’ mantle, bringing their vision to bear on the Civil War and the question of slavery. In Founders’ Son, celebrated historian Richard Brookhiser presents a compelling new biography of Abraham Lincoln that highlights his lifelong struggle to carry on the work of the Founding Fathers. Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, D.C., Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary. And he shows that despite his many roles and his varied life, Lincoln returned time and time again to the Founders. They were rhetorical and political touchstones, the basis of his interest in politics, and the lodestars guiding him as he navigated first Illinois politics and then the national scene. But their legacy with not sufficient. As the Civil War lengthened and the casualties mounted Lincoln wrestled with one more paternal figure—God the Father—to explain to himself, and to the nation, why ending slavery had come at such a terrible price. Bridging the rich and tumultuous period from the founding of the United States to the Civil War, Founders’ Son is unlike any Lincoln biography to date. Penetrating in its insight, elegant in its prose, and gripping in its vivid recreation of Lincoln’s roving mind at work, this book allows us to think anew about the first hundred years of American history, and shows how we can, like Lincoln, apply the legacy of the Founding Fathers to our times.

A Life of Abraham Lincoln

Founders' Son

William Frank Buckley

Reveals the elegant political commentator in diverse modes and touching on subjects including Jesse Jackson, Reagonomics, and appreciating a certain peanut butter.

Right Reason

A biography of the first President of the United States.

Rediscovering George Washington

Founding Father

The life of John Marshall, Founding Father and America's premier chief justice. In 1801, a genial and brilliant Revolutionary War veteran and politician became the fourth chief justice of the United States. He would hold the post for 34 years (still a record), expounding the Constitution he loved. Before he joined the Supreme Court, it was the weakling of the federal government, lacking in dignity and clout. After he died, it could never be ignored again. Through three decades of dramatic cases involving businessmen, scoundrels, Native Americans, and slaves, Marshall defended the federal government against unruly states, established the Supreme Court's right to rebuke Congress or the president, and unleashed the power of American commerce. For better and for worse, he made the Supreme Court a pillar of American life. In John Marshall, award-winning biographer Richard Brookhiser vividly chronicles America's greatest judge and the world he made.

The Man Who Made the Supreme Court

John Marshall

Why do Americans care so much about the Founding Fathers? After all, the French don't ask themselves, "What would Napoleon do?" But Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Adams built our country, wrote our user's manuals--the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution--and ran the nation while it was still under warranty and could be returned to the manufacturer. If anyone knows how the U.S.A. should work, they did and they still do. Richard Brookhiser has been writing, talking, and thinking about the Founders for years. Now he channels them. What would Hamilton think about free trade? What would Franklin make of the national obsession with values? What would Washington say about gays in the military? Examining a host of issues from terrorism to women's rights to gun control, Brookhiser reveals why we still turn to the Founders in moments of struggle, farce, or disaster--just as Lincoln, FDR, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bill Clinton have done before us. Written with Brookhiser's trademark eloquence--and a good dose of wit--while drawing on his deep knowledge of American history, What Would the Founders Do? sheds new light on the disagreements and debates that have shaped our country from the beginning. Brookhiser challenges us to think and act with the clarity that the Founders brought to the task of making a democratic country. Now, more than ever, we need these creators of America--argumentative, expansive, funny know-it-alls--to help us solve the issues that threaten to divide us.

Our Questions, Their Answers

What Would the Founders Do?

Ellen Gross Miles

Margaret C. S. Christman

George Washington: A National Treasurecelebrates our nation's permanent acquisition of Gilbert Stuart's magnificent "Landsdowne" portrait of George Washington. Commissioned For The Marquis of Lansdowne, a British supporter of American independence, The painting shows Washington in the last year of his presidency, 1796. Here is a George Washington For The ages, resolute in the face of the multiple crises of our nation's beginnings; grand in the tradition not of a king but of democracy's representative; civilian rather than military in his authority; and, above all, The embodiment of a nation both stable and free. Today the painting provides a way to think about a time when America's success was by no means certain, about a man whose traits of character became bound up with his nation's fate, and about the expectations for our nation's highest office - the presidency - at the very moment of its creation. Filled with symbols of Washington himself and of the new republic, The painting speaks to Americans today as much as it did in the late eighteenth century. Lavishly illustrated in colour with details of the Lansdowne portrait itself, with other portraits of Washington - contemporary and modern - and with portraits of Washington's colleagues, The book is a treasure in and of itself. Essays reflect on how this remarkable painting explains the nature of Washington and his importance in the national psyche, discuss how Washington came to sit For The Lansdowne painting And The work's ownership throughout the years, and consider Gilbert Stuart's portraits of George Washington and their many copies. A chronology highlights Washington's life and times. Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor at National Review and a columnist For The New York Observer. Margaret C. S. Christman is a historian at the National Portrait Gallery. Ellen G. Miles is curator of painting and sculpture at the National Portrait Gallery.

A National Treasure

George Washington

FIRST IN WAR, FIRST IN PEACE, FIRST IN LEADERSHIP. Richard Brookhiser's revolutionary biography, Founding Father , took George Washington off the dollar bill and made him live. Now, with his trademark wit and precision, Brookhiser expertly examines the details of Washington's life that fullscale biographies sweep over, to instruct us in true leadership. George Washington on Leadership is a textbook look at Washington's three spectacularly successful careers as an executive: general, president, and tycoon. Brookhiser explains how Washington maximized his strengths and overcame his flaws, and inspires us to do likewise. It shows how one man's struggles and successes 200 years ago can be a model for leaders today. Washington oversaw two startups-the army and the presidency. He chaired the most important meeting in American history-the Constitutional Convention. Washington rose from being a third son who was a major in the militia, to one of the most famous men in the world. At every stage in his career, he had to deal with changing circumstances, from tobacco prices to geopolitics, and with wildly different classes of men, from frontiersmen to aristocrats. Washington's example is so crucial because of the many firsts he is responsible for.

George Washington On Leadership

Argues that Americans need to break the stereotype of the WASP as uptight, bland, and elitist and to reinforce the classic WASP ideals of industry, public service, family duty, and conscience to revitalize the nation's faltering moral leadership

How it Made America, and how it Can Save It, So to Speak

The Way of the WASP

In 1799, at the end of George Washingtons long life and illustrious career, the politician Henry Lee eulogized him as: First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. Esteemed historian Richard Brookhiser now adds to this list, First in leadership, examining the lessons to be learned from our first president, first commander-in-chief, and founding CEO. With wit and skill, Brookhiser expertly anatomizes true leadership with lessons from Washingtons three spectacularly successful careers as an executive: general, president, and tycoon. In every area of endeavor, Washington maximized his strengths and overcame his flaws. Brookhiser shows how one mans struggles and successes two centuries ago can serve as a modeland an inspiration for leaders today.

Richard Brookhiser

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