I have been a reader of 19th century historical novels for many years.
Novels that essentially have a plot overlay of real historical fact and factual descriptions of conditions. Russian and slavic novels for example, were really an eye opener for explaining Russian and eastern european behavior and attitudes today.
There is absolutely a large hole in classic literature regarding American history. There is so much that could be written that could explain how we got here, teaching historical fact without the “teaching.”
I agree most anything written today is no more than fluff, and movies are mostly useless for teaching anything.
As for the federalist papers, everybody should have read them at least before they graduate college. I think even more important are the anti-federalist papers. The cynic in me finds that they predicted actual outcomes far better than the federalists.
“As for the federalist papers, everybody should have read them at least before they graduate college. I think even more important are the anti-federalist papers. The cynic in me finds that they predicted actual outcomes far better than the federalists.”
Eh, I don’t know about that, the federalists, or at least John Adams, certainly ended up predicting the actual outcomes of the French Revolution far better than the anti-federalists, or at least Thomas Jefferson did, and that was despite the latter actually being in France at the time it went down.