First Principles

The main downfall of this book is the shoehorning in of modern partisan political viewpoints where they don't fit into the surrounding text. I don't know if the original draft was re-edited to take advantage of the modern fashion to attack all things having to do with the founders, but it doesn't feel like it fits with the “on-topic” parts of the book. The author also has a tendency to overquote other historians, which could be cleaned up. This book has a lot of potential - with re-editing it could be a 4 or 5 star book.

interesting focus on the classical backgrounds of the Founders. Wanders a bit and sometimes doesn't do a good job of explaining the basics. My greatest concern was the author dumping on Trump in the Introduction (and Afterword), exposing his left-wing bias, all of which was completely unnecessary to his points.
Also, I suspect he ignored the influence of the Bible, particularly the Hebrew bible, on the Founder's thoughts.