{"title":"Jay Cost","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"price-of-greatness-book-jay-cost-9781541697461","title":"The Price of Greatness","description":"An incisive account of the tumultuous relationship between Alexander Hamilton and James Madison and of the origins of our wealthy yet highly unequal nation  In the history of American politics there are few stories as enigmatic as that of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison's bitterly personal falling out. Together they helped bring the Constitution into being, yet soon after the new republic was born they broke over the meaning of its founding document. Hamilton emphasized economic growth, Madison the importance of republican principles.  Jay Cost is the first to argue that both men were right--and that their quarrel reveals a fundamental paradox at the heart of the American experiment. He shows that each man in his own way came to accept corruption as a necessary cost of growth. The Price of Greatness reveals the trade-off that made the United States the richest nation in human history, and that continues to fracture our politics to this day.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49585472405777,"sku":"GOR009793894","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50072808259857,"sku":"CIN1541697464G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51504786899217,"sku":"CIN1541697464VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53336285544721,"sku":"NLS9781541697461","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1541697464.jpg?v=1750797949"},{"product_id":"james-madison-book-jay-cost-9781541699557","title":"James Madison","description":"How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history -- his political trajectory seems almost intentionally inconsistent. He was both for and against a strong federal government. He wrote about the dangers of political parties in the Federalist papers and then helped to found the Republican party just a few years later. And though he has frequently been celebrated as the \"father of the constitution,\" his contributions to our founding document were subtler than many have supposed. This so-called \"Madison problem\" has occupied scholars for ages.  Previous biographies have made sense of Madison's mixed record by breaking his life into discrete periods. But this approach falls short. Madison was, of course, a single person -- a brilliant thinker whose life's work was to forge a stronger Union around principles of limited government, individual rights, and above all, justice. As Jay Cost argues in this incisive new biography, we cannot comprehend Madison's legacy without understanding him as a working politician. We tend to focus on his accomplishments as a statesman and theorist -- but the same ideals that guided his thinking in these arenas shaped his practice of politics, where they were arguably more influential. Indeed, Madison was the original American politician. Whereas other founders split their time between politics and other vocations, Madison dedicated himself singularly to the work of politics and ultimately developed it into a distinctly American idiom.  Bringing together the full range of his intellectual life, Cost shows us Madison as we've never seen him before: not as a man with uncertain opinions and inconstant views -- but as a coherent and unified thinker, a skilled strategist, and a key contributor to the ideals that have shaped our history. He was, in short, the first American politician.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49786803093777,"sku":"CIN1541699556G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50980394926353,"sku":"CIN1541699556VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52692673364241,"sku":"NIN9781541699557","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1541699556.jpg?v=1751212738"},{"product_id":"democracy-or-republic-book-jay-cost-9780844750514","title":"Democracy or Republic?","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn recent years, the Constitution has become a source of political controversy between conservatives and progressives. While the right defends our founding document, the left argues that it's an antiquated plan of government that goes against basic principles of democratic sovereignty.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhat's missing from this debate is an appreciation for the Constitution's purpose. What kind of government were thefounders trying to achieve?\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn his new book, \u003ci\u003eDemocracy or Republic? ThePeople and the Constitution\u003c\/i\u003e, Jay Cost provides insight into that question.He argues that the founders' vision was for a republic, not a democracy.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn both types of government, the citizens have the power to rule, but republics go further than this. A republic, as AbrahamLincoln put it, is a government \"of the people, by the people, for the people.\"But in a simple democracy, the majority can rule for the good of themselves,rather than the whole community. How do you place the people in charge withoutcreating a democratic tyranny? By the time of the American Revolution, nobodyin the history of the world had yet answered this question.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBut America's Founding Fathers did just that, and the Constitution reflects their ingenious solution--the idea of consensus.They created a government that would take action not because a narrow andfleeting majority demands it, but because a large, broad, and consideredcoalition of the people has found common cause with one another. This reflectsthe true opinion of the people, not just a faction that is temporarily inpower. That is how government of the people becomes government for the people.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAmerica, then, is not merely a democracy. It is something greater. It is a republic, built on the ideal of consensus. And whileour country today has many problems, consensus remains the best way to solvethem. Far from being a liability for the United States, the Constitution isstill its greatest asset.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50111452905745,"sku":"CIN0844750514G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008786465041,"sku":"NIN9780844750514","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0844750514.jpg?v=1763125050"},{"product_id":"spoiled-rotten-how-the-politics-of-patronage-corrupted-the-once-noble-democratic-book-jay-cost-9780062041159","title":"Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic","description":"A popular columnist for The Weekly Standard, conservative journalist Jay Cost now offers a lively, candid, diligently researched revisionist history of the Democratic Party. In Spoiled Rotten, Cost reveals that the national political organization, first formed by Andrew Jackson in 1824, that has always prided itself as the party of the poor, the working class, the little guy is anything but that--rather, it's a corrupt tool of special interest groups that feed off of the federal government. A remarkable book that belongs on every politically aware American's bookshelf next to Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism and The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, Spoiled Rotten exposes the Democratic Party as a modern-day national Tammany Hall and indisputably demonstrates why it can no longer be trusted with the power of government.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50343239024913,"sku":"CIN0062041150G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0062041150.jpg?v=1751322323"},{"product_id":"republic-no-more-book-jay-cost-9781594037276","title":"A Republic No More","description":"After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, \"Well, Doctor, what have we got--a Republic or a Monarchy?\" Franklin's response: \"A Republic--if you can keep it.\"  This book argues: we couldn't keep it.  A true republic privileges the common interest above the special interests. To do this, our Constitution established an elaborate system of checks and balances that separates power among the branches of government, and places them in conflict with one another. The Framers believed that this would keep grasping, covetous factions from acquiring enough power to dominate government. Instead, only the people would rule.  Proper institutional design is essential to this system. Each branch must manage responsibly the powers it is granted, as well as rebuke the other branches when they go astray. This is where subsequent generations have run into trouble: we have overloaded our government with more power than it can handle. The Constitution's checks and balances have broken down because the institutions created in 1787 cannot exercise responsibly the powers of our sprawling, immense twenty-first century government. The result is the triumph of special interests over the common interest. James Madison called this factionalism. We know it as political corruption.  Corruption today is so widespread that our government is not so much a republic, but rather a special interest democracy. Everybody may participate, yes, but the contours of public policy depend not so much on the common good, but rather the push-and-pull of the various interest groups encamped in Washington, DC.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50394358087953,"sku":"CIN1594037272G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51038320099601,"sku":"NIN9781594037276","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51321617547537,"sku":"CIN1594037272VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52679954989329,"sku":"NLS9781594037276","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53333082145041,"sku":"GOR014852674","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1594037272.jpg?v=1750719843"},{"product_id":"republic-no-more-book-jay-cost-9781594039676","title":"A Republic No More","description":"After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, Well, Doctor, what have we got--a Republic or a Monarchy? Franklin's response: A Republic--if you can keep it. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis book argues: we couldn't keep it. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA true republic privileges the common interest above the special interests. To do this, our Constitution established an elaborate system of checks and balances that separates power among the branches of government, and places them in conflict with one another. The Framers believed that this would keep grasping, covetous factions from acquiring enough power to dominate government. Instead, only the people would rule. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eProper institutional design is essential to this system. Each branch must manage responsibly the powers it is granted, as well as rebuke the other branches when they go astray. This is where subsequent generations have run into trouble: we have overloaded our government with more power than it can handle. The Constitution's checks and balances have broken down because the institutions created in 1787 cannot exercise responsibly the powers of our sprawling, immense twenty-first century government. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe result is the triumph of special interests over the common interest. James Madison called this factionalism. We know it as political corruption. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCorruption today is so widespread that our government is not so much a republic, but rather a special interest democracy. Everybody may participate, yes, but the contours of public policy depend not so much on the common good, but rather the push-and-pull of the various interest groups encamped in Washington, DC.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50394434502929,"sku":"CIN1594039674G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52682205495569,"sku":"NLS9781594039676","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1594039674.jpg?v=1750799288"},{"product_id":"what-s-so-bad-about-cronyism-book-jay-cost-9781594038716","title":"What's So Bad About Cronyism?","description":"Cronyism is a serious problem in the United States, but unfortunately it is still not very well understood. In this new essay, Jay Cost explains what it is, and why we should be so worried about it. By mingling private and public interests, cronyism costs us hundreds of billions of dollars per year and threatens to transform our republic into an oligarchy, where the rich dominate the middle class. Worse, modern cronyism has become embedded into the laws themselves, so politicians in Washington assume that such corruption is just the way things should be. To confront the dangers of cronyism, reformers need to think outside the box, paying special attention to how the political process functions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52820559823121,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52820560642321,"sku":"NLS9781594038716","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781594038716.jpg?v=1764330203"},{"product_id":"democracy-or-republic-book-jay-cost-9780844750521","title":"Democracy or Republic?","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow do you place the people in charge without creating a democratic tyranny? By the time of the American Revolution, nobody in the history of the world had yet answered this question.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eIn recent years, the Constitution has become a source of political controversy between conservatives and progressives. While the right defends our founding document, the left argues that it's an antiquated plan of government that goes against the basic principles of democratic sovereignty.  \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eDemocracy or Republic?\u003c\/i\u003e, Jay Cost argues that America's Constitution was designed for a republic, not a democracy. The Constitution ensures that the people rule for the good of all, not just those who happen to make up a majority. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eOur Constitution does this by promoting consensus. It empowers large, broad, and considered coalitions of people who have found common cause with one another.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003eAmerica, then, is not merely a democracy. It is something greater.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52987650736401,"sku":"NIN9780844750521","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53069799457041,"sku":"NLS9780844750521","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780844750521.jpg?v=1767360873"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-jay-cost.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}