McDonald was awesome, wrote about the Constitution, Samuel Insull, George Washington.
< hitting my forehead > Well duh, I should have pinged you.
Others out there should note that Forrest McDonald was the historian that destroyed the great liberal interprative work of Charles Beard that stood like a collosus over the understanding of the Constitution during the first half of the 20th century and even into the 70s. McDonald beginning in his dissertation in 1958 showed how utterly wrong and without foundation Beard’s marxist thesis of 1913 was. Despite the clarity of his rebuttal, when I took my first major American History class in the mid 1960s it was Beard’s thesis that was given prominence with nary a word on McDonald’s work.
Forrest was an amazing historian he will be deeply missed.
RIP
I read the Insull book, it was great. NOBODY that I know in Illinois knows who Insull is and what a debt they owe him.