Author: Myron Magnet

Myron Magnet (b. 1944) is a commentator and the current editor-at-large for City Journal, for which he served as editor from 1994 to 2007. A 2008 recipient of the National Humanities Medal, Magnet has written for Commentary, Washington Monthly, the Wall Street Journal, and, the New York Times, among other publications. He is the author or editor of six books, including Dickens and the Social Order (1985), The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties’ Legacy to the Underclass (1993), and What Makes Charity Work?: A Century of Public and Private Philanthropy (2000).

The Rise of Washington

Myron Magnet

Books instruct and inspire, habitual practice produces character, but in George Washington’s case it is most of all the deeds that make the man. And, in the view of American author and editor Myron Magnet (b. 1944), it is great men who make history and George Washington is, for this thesis, “Exhibit A.”

Washington and the Constitutional Convention

Myron Magnet

Independence had been won for the new nation, but the large problems of governance and political structure remained. As this selection by American author and editor Myron Magnet (b. 1944), excerpted from his 2012 essay titled “Washingtonianism” (two other excerpts appear in our Washington ebook) indicates, there was a growing sense that the original Articles of Confederation needed to be replaced if the new republic was to flourish.