Aristotle said that drama is more philosophical than history, but (it seems to me) sometimes history may be more philosophical than philosophy, so, with an obvious American bias

_The Federalist Era_ _The Machiavellian Moment_, J.G.A. Pocock _The History of the United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison_, Henry Adams _The Old Regime and the Revolution_ by de Tocqueville, also his history of 1848. _The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution_, Bernard Bailyn Polybius

Lionhearted recommends a book on Castiglione--Castiglione's own book of the courtier is well worth reading and should be easy to find.