The book is not a typical monograph. Rather, it is half interpretive/introductory essay, half documentary reader. Sheehan herself describes it as “a work of literary archaeology” (x). That description works, but the book could also be called an annotated documentary reader akin to Bedford's Brief History with Documents series. The person under study is obviously James Madison, yet the particular focus is Madison's political manuscript, “Notes on Government,” penned in 1791 shortly after the first session of Congress. Historians and political scientists have long noted the importance of this work, but it has primarily been framed as an intellectual workbook and topical guide to Madison's series of essays that appeared in the National Gazette. In The Mind of James Madison, Sheehan argues that the work is the best key into the political thought of one of America's greatest political thinkers.

Sheehan opens by explaining that a reference to an otherwise unidentified “little task” found in a March 1791 letter to Jefferson, long understood to be alluding to his notes on the Constitutional Convention, is actually a reference to “Notes on Government.” But more than just a seemingly tedious corrective to Madisonian minutiae, this introductory interpretation reflects much concerning how Sheehan views “Notes”: the short text should be, she explains, a replacement for “Notes of Debates” as Madison's most important literary and political contribution during the founding era. Further, Sheehan argues that the brief work is both a refinement and an extension of The Federalist and is Madison's most sophisticated engagement with political science. If scholars wish to understand one of the nation's most influential figures at one of the nation's most important moments, this book argues, they must grapple with this overlooked essay.

This historiographical intervention could not have come at a better moment, given that Mary Bilder's recent Madison's Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (2015) has put the timing and validity of his Constitutional Convention notes into question, and the stampede of work on his apologia for the Constitution has led scholars to look for less-trodden ground. Further, given that the central paradoxes over Madison's political thought – the tension between his Hamiltonian arguments in favor of a centralized government and federal sovereignty during the 1780s on the one hand, and his Jeffersonian defenses of states’ rights and local allegiances during the 1790s on the other – hinge upon the year 1791, the moment Madison wrote “Notes on Government,” this text captures an important turning point in his thought. Indeed, “Notes on Government” was written at the seeming center point of this transition, and thus proves an important touchstone for fundamental questions concerning the founding era's political debates.

The first half of the book is an extended analysis of the document and an attempt to place Madison's thought within the tradition of classical republicanism. Connecting the author of the Constitution to political thinkers from previous centuries and foreign nations offers not only dignity to Madison's ideas but also a dynamic portrait of how Western thinkers have grappled with the problem of self-rule. Sheehan demonstrates how Madison viewed large-scale republics with states of different sizes, the importance of public opinion, and the dynamics of communication. Madison was responding not only to immediate concerns of the United States, but also to political questions central to republican government. Much of this is a condensed version of Sheehan's most recent book, James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government (2009); readers of that work won't find too much new here, though they will discover how important “Notes on Government” is to Sheehan's interpretation of Madison's broader thought.

But The Mind of James Madison is more than just a recapitulation of Sheehan's distinguished scholarship. The second half of the book includes a new transcription and annotation of “Notes on Government,” as well as helpful excerpts from the sources cited and referred to by Madison himself. It also includes the newspaper essays that resulted from this writing exercise over the next couple of years. Together with her analysis in the first half, this book would prove to be an eminently useful text for any class dealing with early American politics. Students would not only be introduced to an important, if often overlooked, text, but also be guided through the critical process of learning what the text means, as well as why the text matters. If it were not for the cost-prohibitive nature of the text – one can certainly hope for a more affordable paperback edition – The Mind of James Madison would immediately serve as a helpful workbook for courses that in any way touch on the founding issues of America's democratic tradition, expertly compiled by one of the field's experts.