The First Congress

A review of The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (Simon and Schuster, 2016) by Fergus Bordewich

Amateur historians usually write excellent histories. Left unshackled by the latest groupthink of the academy, these historians tend to be independent thinkers and more importantly better writers than their professional counterparts. Shelby Foote used to implore historians to learn to write better. After all, our job is to influence the public, to “interest it intelligently in the past” as G. M. Trevelyan wrote. Popular histories tend to accomplish this needed and worthwhile goal. Most Americans gather their historical knowledge from the amateurs, but when the amateur lacks a comprehensive understanding of the past or has so ingested the propaganda and dogma of his age that his writing suffers from countless mistakes, it brings to mind Polybius’s question, “But if we knowingly write what is false whether for the sake of our country or our friends, or just to be pleasant, what difference is there between us and hack writers?” Fergus Bordewich fits that last description.