by Forrest McDonald
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Product Description
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.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Good Book !, 2008-09-16
My daughter used the book for Goverment AP class - mandatory reading - and with no regrets. It really helps to understand the basis of the our Nation's goverment from an objective perspective. The light through which our founding fathers design the constitution is clearly depicted and fully explore with annotated references.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Nice look at the origins of the Constitution, 2007-06-07
Forrest McDonald has written some exciting work on the Constitutional era in American history. "Novus Ordo Seclorum" lives up to earlier works.
First, what does he mean by the Latin phrase that is the book's title? One translation might be "a new order of the ages" (page 262). Of this, McDonald says that (page 262):
"So it was that the Framers brought a vast knowledge of history and the whole long tradition of civic humanism with them to Philadelphia in May of 1787, and that they departed four months later having fashioned a frame of government that necessitated a redefinition of most of the terms in which the theory and ideology of civic humanism had been discussed."
McDonald notes that for this "new order," four sets of considerations were important for the Framers as they deliberated upon a new framework for governing, as they moved from the flawed Articles of Confederation to some form that would be more effective. Among these guidelines:
1. Protecting (page 3) "the lives, liberty, and property of the citizenry."
2. A commitment to republicanism (including a role for the people, representative institutions, a distrust of direct democracy.
3. History--including ancient Greece and Rome, prior confederations, and the development of English representative institutions.
4. Political theory, including the works of David Hume, James Harrington, John Locke, Montesquieu, Blackstone, and so on.
One important feature of the debates was, as John Jay and others put it, a sense of urgency. There was a sense that of the Americans could not make republicanism work, then (page 183) "it would not be likely to be tried again anywhere else." There was a sense that the time was special and that the United States could be a model.
This is a very nice work addressing the origins of the Constitution, what was at stake, what went into the debates and the structure of the Constitution.
0 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
 Slow going, 2007-04-14
No page turner, it is still a good look at the founding era....
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A very specific work on the philosophical origins of the Constitution, 2006-12-08
Novus Ordo Seclorum is a very specific and academic read on the intellectual origins of the Constitution. Forrest McDonald, in what can only be described as a marvelously researched and specifically footnoted text, digs extraordinarily deep as he seeks out the philosophies and the readings of our framers and they sought to construct a more cohesive nation from an obviously failing and loosely assemble group of sovereign states under the Articles of Confederation. His research and range of knowledge is, at times, daunting. This is a work that is not easily read the first time and one that most, if not all, with an interest in this topic, will pull off their shelves through the years as a reference to further readings. A word of caution - this book should only be read by those who have a significant interest in a deep and academic research into this very specific topic. That said, simply wonderful historical research.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
 "the capstone of a fine career", 2006-08-09
This book is actually the third of a sort of trilogy, begun with "We the People..." in 1958. It should be no surprise that Mc Donald thinks little of Charles Beard. In his earlier work (mentioned above) he did a great deal to discredit Beard's thesis that the founders created the Constitution in order to increase the values of the gov't securities that they held. He followed this in 1965 with "E Pluribus Unum", a work about the political wheeling and dealing that was behind the creation of, and opposition to, the Constitution. He turned his attention to the ideas that were important to the framers in "Novus Ordo Seclorum" in order to finish his career-spanning look at the basis of our government. I my view, the best thing about this book is the way that it is systematically put together. McDonald states the problem clearly early on, and then proceeds to analyze it step-by-step. His placing of the framing of the Constitution in its broader English context is outstanding, as is his discussion of the political and economic theory that the founders had available. But McDonald also makes it abundantly clear that the framers were no ivory tower theoreticians. They were pragmatic, hardnosed political realists who had a good grounding in the best available theory of their day. That combination of theoretical grounding and practical experience has always seemed to me to be the reason that the Constitution was so well crafted and enduring, and McDonald brings that out quite clearly. On another note, McDonald was characterized above as a "conservative historian". It is true that he has supported conservative causes and taken conservative stances throughout his career, but that seems to be beside the point here. McDonald was writing in an attempt to gain understanding about the framing of the Constitution, not to influence current political debate. To often today we look to the founders to resolve our current controversies. As a result people on both sides of the political spectrum have politicized our history in a way that I think leads to an impoverishment of understanding. I admire McDonald for trying to keep the scholarly ideal of detatchment in view, and doing the best he could to live up to it.
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