Myron Magnet, editor-at-large of City Journal, is the author of The Founders at Home, The Dream and the Nightmare, and Dickens and the Social Order. He was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2008. He lives in New York City.
"The Founders at Home is rich in insight, wit, and wisdom about the
men who created America. It’s superb—a pleasure to read on every
page."
*Thomas Fleming, author of The Intimate Lives of the Founding
Fathers*
"Myron Magnet has produced an excellent book from this excellent
idea: We can better understand the Founders, who shaped how we
live, if we better understand how they lived in the homes they
designed and social circles that radiated from those homes. The
American Revolution, he argues, was a success because of its
moderation, and this virtue suffused the Founders’ lives."
*George F. Will, author of One Man’s America: The Pleasures and
Provocations of Our Singular Nation*
"Americans have long admired our Founders from a respectful
distance. Now author Myron Magnet pulls us closer, into the
framers’ homes and minds, so that we suddenly see not only what
drove them but also how very much we share with those first
Americans. Accurate, skillful, and utterly charming."
*Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man*
"The Founders of the American Revolution avoided the excesses of
other major revolutions, not just because of their seminal ideas
but also because they were practical, good men, both at work and at
home. Myron Magnet, in this strikingly original thesis, shows how
the protection of liberty and property were natural extensions of
the way the Founders organized their families and homes. We owe him
thanks for this timely reminder that how we live and what we think
should not be antithetical, but properly complementary."
*Victor Davis Hanson, author of A War Like No Other*
"The Founders at Home is a fascinating exploration of America’s
Founding Fathers at the most intimate level. Highly original and
intensely absorbing—Myron Magnet has produced an outstanding work
of historical research."
*Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire*
"Masterful…a work of scholarship and a labor of love."
*Michael Goodwin - The New York Post*
"Does the world need yet another book on the American Founders?
Yes, indeed: this one…. Mr. Magnet is an accomplished member of the
cast of amateurs who have picked up the popular-history franchise
that the American academic community tossed away…his book is a
labor of love."
*James Grant - The Wall Street Journal*
"An excellent and fluid writer, Magnet succeeds in proving his
point that these were more than residences; they were an expression
of the personalities of their remarkable owners. The Founders at
Home provides an interesting, entertaining, and informative way of
looking at their lives and their world."
*John Steele Gordon - Commentary*
"Delightful… The Founders at Home gives the pleasures of biography,
while putting us back in the texture and complexity of a
world."
*Richard Brookhiser - National Review*
"Entertaining and illuminating… Myron Magnet has done an exemplary
job of portraying our fascinating founders both as remarkable
individuals and as members of a flawed and quarrelsome team that
still somehow managed to give life and meaning to the America we
are blessed with today."
*Aram Bakshian Jr. - The American Spectator*
"The Founders at Home is subtitled “The Building of America,
1735–1817.” “Building” is a pun: All the men he writes about left
homes that, centuries later, are still intact and visitable. But,
by a shrewd selection of subjects, Magnet also covers the
construction of a country, from first thoughts to finishing
touches—from the Zenger trial to the Battle of New Orleans. His
cast of characters allows him to erase the dichotomy between
overexposure and obscurity. The heavyweights are well represented:
Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison. But joining them are
Founders most of us have barely or never heard of: William
Livingston, the Lees of Stratford Hall, sober John Jay. The
Founders at Home gives the pleasures of biography, while putting us
back in the texture and complexity of a world."
*Richard Brookhiser - National Review*
"His exceedingly well-written and richly documented narrative
builds excitement like the best of tales told around a campfire…
Magnet masterfully conveys the often halting steps the founders
took as they moved toward the creation of our democracy by tapping
lavishly into their own recorded words, a reminder both of what
very good writers some of them were, and how lucky we were as a
nation to have been born in the high noon of the Enlightenment…
With The Founders at Home, he has deepened our understanding of the
worldview of our most esteemed political ancestors."
*Rosemary Michaud - Charleston Post and Courier*
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