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Bonaparte, perhaps you originally steered me to McDonald, I can't recall. You and Huck should drop in here every so often if you can.

As an amateur reader of history, I was lucky to have Forrest McDonald’s writing recommended to me by a poster.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, my peers and I were force-fed the liberal Charles Beard’s Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, a book that leftist professors are still calling “a classic” today and forcing on students. Well, starting with his doctoral work, McDonald formed a “test” of those theories in 1958 and subsequently demolished them in We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution. We have that destruction to thank him for if for nothing else in his long career.

While considered by many to be a historian with a conservative bent, he has some surprising opinions based upon his research. Before you doubt him, remember that his professorship at Alabama was the “Distinguished Research Professor of History”. Many of his books are published by the University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS.

Two books of McDonald that I enjoy referring to are:

Novus Ordo Seclorum, The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution by Forrest McDonald (ISBN 0-7006-0311-5)
States’ Rights and the Union; Imperium in Imperio by Forrest McDonald (ISBN 0-7006-1040-5)

That may well have been me. I've recommended McDonald from time to time on the forum. A younger poster once asked what a good survey of US history would be. I suggested The Last Best Hope: A History of the United States (2 vol, paper) by McDonald, Decker and Govan, 1972. Copies of this pop up at bookfinder from time to time.

I just got off vacation, found a great author. Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Prayer for Rain; Shutter Island.) I also read a Mary Higgins Clark novel (pure fluff, but great for a vacation), and The Pianist. The Da Vinci Code was a good read also. I'm now just finishing Babbitt, The First Circle is next up. I'm looking forward to reading Ann Coulter's new book, and I just read Peggy Noonan is coming out with a new book, and I'm thrilled that Barbara Bush is writing a new book. So many books, so little time.