Novus Ordo SeclorumThe Intellectual Origins of the ConstitutionForrest McDonald376 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 1986 PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
"A witty and energetic study of the ideas and passions of the Framers."--New York Times Book Review "Bristles with wit and intellectual energy."--Christian Science Monitor "A masterpiece. McDonald's status as an interpreter of the Constitution is unequalled--magisterial."--National Review
FORREST McDONALD is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Alabama and author of sixteen books, including States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876; The American Presidency; The Presidency of George Washington; and The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson. He was named by the NEH as the sixteenth Jefferson Lecturer, the nation's highest honor in the humanities.
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This is the first major interpretation
of the framing of the Constitution to appear in more than two
decades. Forrest McDonald, widely considered one of the foremost
historians of the Constitution and of the early national period,
reconstructs the intellectual world of the Founding Fathers--including
their understanding of law, history political philosophy, and
political economy, and their firsthand experience in public affairs--and
then analyzes their behavior in the Constitutional Convention
of 1787 in light of that world. No one has attempted to do so
on such a scale before. McDonald's principal conclusion is that,
though the Framers brought a variety of ideological and philosophical
positions to bear upon their task of building a "new order
of the ages," they were guided primarily by theiy own experience,
their wisdom, and their common sense.