Lance Banning offers an incisive account of how American statesmen completed the work of the founding as they sought to implement their conflicting visions of the new nation's future. Conceived in Liberty is lucid, elegant, and wise, a wonderful introduction to a critical, too often neglected period.
Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor, University of Virginia, and author ... Read moreof Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nat With unmatched clarity, lucidity, and fairness, Banning explains the nature of the first great party conflict of American politics. He builds on and extends his earlier work on Jefferson and Madison and along the way imparts some important lessons on partisanship in politics and in scholarly non-partisanship.
Michael Zuckert, University of Notre Dame In this brief but insightful book on the rise of the political parties during Washington's first term, Lance Banning shows why he is regarded as one of the premier historians of the early American republic. While doing full justice to the complexity of the issues that divided the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, Banning writes with uncommon clarity and a rare impartiality.
Carl J. Richard, author of The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment Show Less