This engaging and sympathetic biography provides a revealing portrait of a prolific human being -- the man Thomas Jefferson called "the greatest man in the world." Throughout this remarkable book we see Madison the legislator, writer, Secretary of State, President, elder statesman and, perhaps most importantly, as a man who believed most implicitly in the mutual dependence of democracy and individual freedom. Madison was guided by this philosophy. Accordingly, our constitutional guarantees of civil and religious liberty are, in many ways, his legacy. - Publisher.