The best one volume biography of
Madison's life, Ketcham's biography not only traces Madison's career, it gives readers a sense of the man. As Madison said of his early years in
Virginia under the study of Donald Robertson, who introduced him to thinkers like Montaigne and Montesquieu, "all that I have been in life I owe largely to that man." It also captures a side of Madison that is less rarely on display (including a portrait of the beautiful Dolley Madison).
Background Information
James Madison helped draft the Constitution, collaborated on the Federalist Papers and became Americ'as Fourth President. Virginia was the site of the first permament English settlement in the American colonies and was the largest state at the founding of the country.
