Most students of American History have wondered, at various times of trouble, “What would the founders have thought about the state of the country today?” Fears of a Setting Sun, by Dennis C. Rasmussen, professor of political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, addresses the concerns that the founders themselves had regarding whether the nation would endure.

Dr. Rasmussen joins the North Jersey American Revolution Round Table on May 12 at 7 pm via zoom.

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More on the book from the publisher, Princeton University Press:
“Fears of a Setting Sun” is the first book to tell the fascinating and too-little-known story of the founders’ disillusionment. As Professor Dennis Rasmussen shows, the founders’ pessimism had a variety of sources: Washington lost his faith in America’s political system above all because of the rise of partisanship, Hamilton because he felt that the federal government was too weak, Adams because he believed that the people lacked civic virtue, and Jefferson because of sectional divisions laid bare by the spread of slavery.

The one major founder who retained his faith in America’s constitutional order to the end was James Madison, and the book also explores why he remained relatively optimistic when so many of his compatriots did not. As much as Americans today may worry about their country’s future, Rasmussen reveals, the founders faced even graver problems and harbored even deeper misgivings. A vividly written account of a chapter of American history that has received too little attention, “Fears of a Setting Sun” will change the way that you look at the American founding, the Constitution, Barb Demarest is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.