Of seven books. Madison transformed the field more than anyone else. Its all constitutions everywhere. I thought, i was about to turn 40 and i thought i want something to really sink my teeth into federal spend my middle 40s on and win lose or draw, ive written something fat, and thats edited down considerably. The bottom line is, i wanted to do something i thought would be hard and long and maybe good and it was deathly hard and definitely long and now its up to you whether you think its good. I wanted to really dive in to the essential question of where did it all come from. Who were the key people behind it. Who made the world that we now live in. One of the fascinating things is that it turns out that although writing the constitution is the thing is most famous for, it was not the only thing of huge fundamental importance that he did and thats why called it the three lives of James Madison. The first life is the creation of the constitution and the other half to do with playing ou