On the Way to the Common Good, Delegates Found Words That Still Apply - NY Times book review

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Books of The Times
On the Way to the Common Good, Delegates Found Words That Still Apply By ROBERT A. DAHL
NY Times - Nov. 28, 2007
A book review of:
THE GENIUS OF AMERICA:
How the Constitution Saved Our Country and Why It Can Do It Again
By Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes
&
A MORE PERFECT CONSTITUTION:
23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country
By Larry J. Sabato

For those of us interested in the promise of the American Constitution and also in its imperfections, it is a happy coincidence that these two volumes have appeared at the same time, for they nicely complement each other.

The judgment by Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes in “The Genius of America” that “James Madison was the right man at the right moment” would be echoed, I imagine, by Larry J. Sabato in “A More Perfect Constitution.” In 1787, at a critical historical juncture when the future of the new United States was highly uncertain, Madison came to the Constitutional Convention with qualities of mind and character that enabled him to bring persuasive leadership and impressive knowledge to the daunting task of creating a satisfactory and enduring written Constitution for the onetime British colonies, then tied loosely together by the shaky Articles of Confederation.

“Could men with such varied ideas, prejudices and interests come together, fight for their views and then accept the outcome of the process?” asks Mr. Lane, a law professor at Hofstra University, and Mr. Oreskes, the executive editor of the International Herald Tribune, which is owned by The New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/books/28dahl.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin