Serpent in Eden: Foreign Meddling and Partisan Politics in James Madison's America - Hardcover

by Tyson Reeder (Author)

A story of espionage, shadow diplomacy, foreign scheming, and domestic backstabbing in the formative years of the American republic.

Tyson Reeder's book traces 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 partisan politics, aggravated by the untested and imperfect new tools of governance and the growing power of media. Foreign powers, mainly Great Britain and Napoleonic France, exploited these conditions to advance their own agendas, interfering in U.S. elections to promote the outcome they favored. Dissent and disloyalty became dangerously interdigitated, nearly bringing the new republic to the brink of collapse.

Author Biography

Tyson Reeder teaches history at Brigham Young University and taught previously at the University of Virginia, where he was an editor of the Papers of James Madison. He is the author of Smugglers, Pirates, and Patriots: Free Trade in the Age of Revolution (2019) and editor of the Routledge History of U.S. Foreign Relations (2021), in addition to numerous articles and book chapters.