Tyson Reeder's book evokes early America's rocky beginnings, when foreign interference and political conflict threatened to undermine its aspirations and ideals, even its very existence. Spanning the period from the Revolution to the War of 1812, and focusing particularly on the presidency of James Madison, it reveals a nation adjusting to rancorous partisanship, subjected to the untested and imperfect new tools of governance, and learning to live with the growing power of media.