First Principles

The main downfall of this book is the shoehorning in of modern partisan political viewpoints where they don't fit into the surrounding text. I don't know if the original draft was re-edited to take advantage of the modern fashion to attack all things having to do with the founders, but it doesn't feel like it fits with the “on-topic” parts of the book. The author also has a tendency to overquote other historians, which could be cleaned up. This book has a lot of potential - with re-editing it could be a 4 or 5 star book.