THE <i> FEDERALIST </i> PAPERS<i> by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (Knowledge Products, (800) 453-9000: $14.95; two audiocassettes </i>

The Federalist Papers, as we all know, provide context for the American Constitution. They provide the argumentation that the Constitution itself omits. But the context for The Federalist Papers themselves is little less than the whole of European political thought. And who has time for that?

Enter the Knowledge Products Audio Classics Series, 24 cassettes mailed to subscribers two at a time for $14.95 the pair and encompassing: (1) Thomas Paine, “Common Sense” and Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence”; (2) Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” and William Lloyd Garrison, “The Liberator”; (3) and (4) Adam Smith, “The Wealth of Nations” (four cassettes), both the most ambitious and the most successful of the series; (5) Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The Communist Manifesto” and Jean Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract”; (6) Niccolo Machiavelli, “The Prince” and Etienne de la Boetie, “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude”; (7) John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty” and Mary Wollstonecraft, “Vindication of the Rights of Woman”; (8) Edmund Burke, “Reflections on the Revolution in France” and Thomas Paine once again, “Rights of Man”; (9) Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan”; (10) The Federalist Papers, as already mentioned; (11) John Locke, “Two Treatises of Government”; and (12) Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America.”

These classics are not read in their entirety in the Knowledge Products series; in fact, they are not read at all, they are taught. Each cassette opens with a little music. The music fades. A patient, clear, teacherly voice sets the historical scene for us, often at considerable length and with apposite quotes from thinkers contemporary with the one(s) we are about to meet. And then we hear another voice, the voice of one fairly livid with the force of his own arguments: Adam Smith, excited in a Scottish burr; Etienne de la Boetie, animated in a French honk; and so on. Excerpts only, but well-chosen, until the voice of the teacher returns to wrap things up.

I must admit that there have been moments, as I have listened to these cassettes over the last eight months, when the ingrate pup of student recalcitrance has yelped again. But there have been happier moments, too, when the air was clear, the freeway flowing and the cry sprang to the lips, “We have a Republic--if we can keep it!”

Serious students of the Constitution, and may there always be many of them, will need a full printed edition of The Federalist Papers. But the Republic, if we do manage to keep it, will always require a supply of somewhat less serious students as well, the kind who might not skip the Sunday football game to immerse themselves in Alexander Hamilton but might sit still for his arguments--and for counter-arguments from the likes of Sam Adams--on the way to work. For such as them (and me), the Knowledge Products Audio Classics Series is the perfect Bicentennial traveling companion.