Have you read all 85 Chapters?

Yes

I find the Anti-Federalist papers far more interesting.

What is interesting to me is that in AP US History Thomas Payne's Common Sense was required reading, but I hadn't even heard of the Federalist Papers until college.

(04-13-2010 02:15 PM)moe24 Wrote:  What is interesting to me is that in AP US History Thomas Payne's Common Sense was required reading, but I hadn't even heard of the Federalist Papers until college.

They're really in two different categories in US colonial history. Common Sense is up there with the Declaration in the sense that it was part of the separation movement/environment of the time. The Federalist papers were part of the discussion to ratify the Constitution a decade later. So depending on how your curriculum was taught, I could understand how Common Sense would get more coverage than the Federalist Papers, since the Papers are more used for in-depth study of the Constitution and Founders Intent, while Common Sense can be used to examine the period in the lead up to war and had a much wider impact than the Papers.

(04-13-2010 02:40 PM)T-Monay820 Wrote:  

(04-13-2010 02:15 PM)moe24 Wrote:  What is interesting to me is that in AP US History Thomas Payne's Common Sense was required reading, but I hadn't even heard of the Federalist Papers until college.

They're really in two different categories in US colonial history. Common Sense is up there with the Declaration in the sense that it was part of the separation movement/environment of the time. The Federalist papers were part of the discussion to ratify the Constitution a decade later. So depending on how your curriculum was taught, I could understand how Common Sense would get more coverage than the Federalist Papers, since the Papers are more used for in-depth study of the Constitution and Founders Intent, while Common Sense can be used to examine the period in the lead up to war and had a much wider impact than the Papers.

The AP US History class I was in started with the Articles of Confederation and spent the first two months on the forming of the Constitution.

Read the first half of the Federalist Papers.

I have to semi-retract my response. I haven't read all of them, but did study them many years ago in college. However, I am pi$$ed.

I've read them pretty recently while starting on Common Sense and his paper on slavery.