{"title":"Ralph L Ketcham","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"james-madison-book-ralph-l-ketcham-9780813912653","title":"James Madison","description":"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). Madison's personality comes alive in these pages, his strengths and weaknesses of mind and character clearly outlined. His great services in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 are graphically portrayed. The analysis of his political theory, and of the way in which he sought to apply it to the establishment of of government under the Constitution, is excellent. The depiction of Jeffersonian and Madisonian foreign policy up to the outbreak of the War of 1812 is clear and succinct. This is an excellent biography. American Historical Review Utilizing the vast amount of source material made available in the last 30 years, Ketcham has captured the essential man in his times and in doing so has made him understandable for us in our own day. Los Angeles Times This single volume has provided a penetrating and highly readable biography which merits distinction as the best one-volume life of Madison yet written. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Ketcham's long-standing familiarity with Madison's life and times is evident in this accessible work...Ketcham has written an enjoyable and scholarly narrative that will no doubt be considered of great value to Montpelier's more serious visitors, as well as students, scholars, and general readers with an interest in the founding couple. Kellie Strickland, North Carolina State University - North Carolina Historical Review","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49713970807057,"sku":"CIN0813912652G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49916148023569,"sku":"CIN0813912652A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50226043191569,"sku":"CIN0813912652VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50653807575313,"sku":"GOR003290725","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0813912652.jpg?v=1758794037"},{"product_id":"idea-of-democracy-in-the-modern-era-book-ralph-l-ketcham-9780700613342","title":"The Idea of Democracy in the Modern Era","description":"Although the last half of the twentieth century has been called the Age of Democracy, the twenty-first has already demonstrated the fragility of its apparent triumph as the dominant form of government throughout the world. Reassessing the fate of democracy for our time, distinguished political theorist Ralph Ketcham traces the evolution of this idea over the course of four hundred years. He traces democracy's bumpy ride in a book that is both an exercise in the history of ideas and an explication of democratic theory. Ketcham examines the rationales for democratic government, identifies the fault lines that separate democracy from good government, and suggests ways to strengthen it in order to meet future challenges. Drawing on an encyclopedic command of history and politics, he examines the rationales that have been offered for democratic government over the course of four manifestations of modernity that he identifies in the Western and East Asian world since 1600. Ketcham first considers the fundamental axioms established by theorists of the Enlightenment - Bacon, Locke, Jefferson - and reflected in America's founding, then moves on to the mostly post-Darwinian critiques by Bentham, Veblen, Dewey, and others that produced theories of the liberal corporate state. He explains late-nineteenth-century Asian responses to democracy as the third manifestation, grounded in Confucian respect for communal and hierarchical norms, followed by late-twentieth-century postmodernist thought that views democratic states as oppressive and seeks to empower marginalized groups. Ketcham critiques the first, second, and fourth modernity rationales for democracy and suggests that the Asian approach may represent a reconciliation of ancient wisdom and modern science better suited to today's world. He advocates a reorientation of democracy that de-emphasizes group or identity politics and restores the wholeness of the civic community, proposing a return to the Jeffersonian universalism - that which informed the founding of the United States - if democracy is to flourish in a fifth manifestation. The Idea of Democracy in the Modern Era is an erudite, interdisciplinary work of great breadth and complexity that looks to the past in order to reframe the future. With its global overview and comparative insights, it will stimulate discussion of how democracy can survive - and thrive - in the coming era.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49875811467537,"sku":"CIN070061334XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52133268521233,"sku":"NLS9780700613342","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/070061334X.jpg?v=1763222256"},{"product_id":"madisons-at-montepelier-book-ralph-l-ketcham-9780813928111","title":"The Madisons at Montepelier","description":"Restored to its original splendor, Montpelier is now a national shrine, but before Montpelier became a place of study and tribute, it was a home. Often kept from it by the business of the young nation, James and Dolley Madison could finally take up permanent residence when they retired from Washington in 1817. Their lifelong friend Thomas Jefferson predicted that, at Montpelier, the retiring Madison could return to his 'books and farm, to tranquility, and independence', that he would be released 'from incessant labors, corroding anxieties, active enemies, and interested friends'. As the celebrated historian Ralph Ketcham shows, this would turn out to be only partly true. Although the Madisons were no longer in Washington, Dolley continued to take part in its social scene from afar, dominating it just as she had during Jefferson's and her husband's administrations, commenting on people and events there and advising the multitude of young people who thought of her as the creator of society life in the young republic. James maintained a steady correspondence about public questions ranging from Native American affairs, slavery, and utopian reform to religion and education.  He also took an active role at the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-30, in the defeat of nullification, and in the establishment of the University of Virginia, of which he was the rector for eight years after Jefferson's death. Exploring Madison's role in these post-presidential issues reveals a man of extraordinary intellectual vitality and helps us to better understand Madison's political thought. His friendships with figures such as Jefferson, James Monroe, and the marquis de Lafayette - as well as his assessment of them (he outlived them all) - shed valuable light on the nature of the republic they had all helped found. In their last years, James and Dolley Madison personified the republican institutions and culture of the new nation - James as the father of the Constitution and its chief propounder for nearly half a century, and Dolley as the creator of the role of 'First Lady'. Anything but uneventful, the retirement period at Montpelier should be seen as a crucial element in our understanding of this remarkable couple.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50215001620753,"sku":"CIN0813928117VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51694408401169,"sku":"CIN0813928117G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0813928117.jpg?v=1750745525"},{"product_id":"framed-for-posterity-book-ralph-l-ketcham-9780700605910","title":"Framed for Posterity","description":"In Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall defined the Constitution as \"\"a superior, paramount law\"\", one that supersedes the laws passed by Congress and state legislatures. What makes it paramount? This book sets out to recover the enduring principles, purposes, and meanings that inform the founders' charter and continue to offer us political guidance more than 200 years later. In so doing, it steers a middle course between \"\"originalists\"\", who restrict interpretation to constitutional specifics, and \"\"relativists\"\", who adapt the Constitution to the moment by ignoring original meaning. \"\"Original intent\"\", Ralph Ketcham argues, is best discerned by a study of the political climate that nourished the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and, more particularly, by undertaking the broader meanings, intentions, and purposes of the framers. To recover this full context of political thinking, Ketcham delves not only into the meaning of the documents but also into the connotations of the framers' vocabulary, the reasoning behind both accepted and rejected propositions, arguments for and against, and unstated assumptions. In his analysis the fundamental or enduring principles are republicanism (as part of the broader doctrine of balance of powers). Ketcham answers those who question the relevance to modern constitutional interpretation of the finding that the founders were both republican and liberal. He asserts that the rights-protecting character of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights derived from the founders' belief that private rights depended upon active government and public virtue. In other words, private liberties rested on the citizenry's right to self-governance.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50360141054225,"sku":"CIN0700605916G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52132094378257,"sku":"NLS9780700605910","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0700605916.jpg?v=1763224555"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-ralph-l-ketcham.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}