James Madison: A Biography

The best one volume biography of Madison's life, Ketcham's biography not only traces Madison's career, it gives readers a sense of the man.  As Madison said of his early years in Virginia under the study  of Donald Robertson, who introduced him to thinkers like Montaigne and Montesquieu, "all that I have been in life I owe largely to that man."  It also captures a side of Madison that is less rarely on display (including a portrait of the beautiful Dolley Madison.)