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Summary: Everyday folks, extraordinary time
Review: Recent authors and biographers of the events and people of the Colonial Period in America (David McCullough, Stephen Ambrose, Jay Winik) seem intent on pointing out that the men who began the evolution of the American experience were simply average men, no better and no worse than any other. Some were better educated, some were more ambitious, but all were human beings caught up in a special time. In short, we begin to get the idea that these were average men who stepped forward to meet the destiny of a nation.The evolution of Western thought had developed to a certain point and these were the men who tuned into that thought, picked it up, and ran with it. They were knowledgeable about history and they had the vision needed begin the creation. Of course they knew what they were doing. They just didn't know how long it would last. ("What kind of government have you given us, Sir?" "A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.") Perhaps modern writers are overdoing the fallible human being a bit -- even to the point of being inaccurate in certain cases --but they are certainly making the point. Joseph Ellis brings us six stories that illustrate this point. The dinner at Thomas Jefferson's where the location of the capital city is decided sounds like a dinner party that might have been held at Katherine Graham's a century-and-a-half later. As you read this enchanting book, think of modern corollaries for each story. That politics was carried on in a one-on-one manner in Colonial Times should be no surprise. Hasn't it always been that way in the USA? Isn't that the very crux of our political system? It seems that modern writers and historians have suddenly discovered that history is about people rather than dusty dates. Hooray for authors like Joseph Ellis, David McCullough and Stephen Ambrose. They teach us that the legends of American history are men and women just like ourselves and the inferred lesson from this is that if they can do it, so can we. Maybe now Americans will tune into the stories that made us great, learn about our history and develop visions of their own so that we can keep our greatness and expand on it.
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Summary: Well done!
Review: A very different and successful approach to writing history! This is a history book for non-history readers. It's really 6 mini-biographies with a unifying introduction. The result is, not only do you learn something about each fascinating individual, you also learn a great deal (as a by-product) about the fragile formation of our country. You also get an insight into why we are the country that we are today! Although it is evident that the author is an authority and has thoroughly researched the subject, the book is not heavy-handed academics! A pleasure to read and should be required high school material.
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Summary: The stories beyond history textbooks
Review: Extraordinary times produce extraordinary characters who rise to meet the bigger-than-life challenges. Hamilton, Franklin and countless other comtemporaries, who otherwise would have languished in Europe's tradition and system, embody the timeless American identity as the "land of opportunity." Ellis describes the founding brothers as an eclectic group of people who hold strong biases and, in some cases, deep flaws. Especially, after the revolution and during the nation's infant stage, these fallible human beings with divergent visions for the nation could have led the histroy in a different direction. However, these fallible human beings collectively, guided by the elusive "spirit of 76", transcended all the obstacles and formed a political system that can stand the test of time as well as individuals. Neither Washington nor Jefferson is the real hero, but the entire generation collectively is. It was an extraordinary times played by extraordinary people whose miraculous accomplishment is a lasting legacy for the human race.
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Summary: Founding brothers revealed
Review: Six essays reflect on the personalities, core thinking, and political motivations of seven men: John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. The essays are structured around certain events or themes: the Burr-Hamilton duel; the Jefferson-Madison-Hamilton meeting in June 1790, which figured in the Assumption Bill/capital location compromise; the antislave petitions to Congress in 1790; Washington's farewell address; John Adams's presidency; and the renewed late-life friendship between Adams and Jefferson. The author succeeds in his aim to extract essential meaning from large-scale topics. The lively narrative reassesses the pivotal roles of the seven men and their intertwining relationships. The most original and enlightening of the essays is the discussion on the congressional slave debates of 1790 in perspective. Among interesting revelations are the influence of Abigail Adams on her husband and James Madison's mastery of political detente. Recommended for general readers and all academic levels.
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Summary: An honest portrayal!
Review: With the exception of the Bible, this was the most interesting book I have ever read. The book captivated me page by page. It reviewed stories about the Founding Fathers, stories that are often not given pubic notice. In particular, I was curious about two issues that the book clearly focused on - the Founders' various political views and their views about slavery. The book explains that the Founders were clearly aware that slavery was both unjustifiable but also a vital part of southern culture. Their decision was to set the slavery debate aside for the time being with the hope that future generations would take care of this American sin. Of course this future time was the civil war which cost over 250,000 American lives. The author, Joseph Ellis, did an impeccable job at giving an honest protrayal of the Founders' thoughts about this volatile issue. The Founders felt that to handle slavery when the country was at its infant stage would have threatened the nation itself. In fact, the author gives credence to one important reason why America is such a dominant nation today - we were a nation with vast lands and resources without the threat of neighboring enemies (George Washington's vision actually became a reality). Still, it was disappointing that this "free" country was formed with the existence of African slaves. It also appears that the Founders recognized (especially Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin) that they would be forever be "questioned" for allowing such a misdeed of justice. However, Mr. Ellis provided at least an understanding on how the slavery issue was viewed back in 1790. Mr. Ellis discussed many other issues, for example Washington's farewell address and the fued/friendship between Jefferson & Adams with the same careful, non-biased analysis. The book also provided a unique look at the Presidential election of 1796 and I was struck by the political maneuvering of our key leaders. I'm not a history buff but I loved this book. I liked it so much because it treated our Founding Fathers like REAL PEOPLE.
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Summary: Clear perspective on the central paradox of America
Review: Yes, the description of Hamilton's deadly duel with Burr is fascinating but that is not why I recommend this book. Ellis calls the central paradox, duality, whatever of the United States of America the conflict between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; between the sincere desire/quest for universal human rights and the need to knit together the nation that could provide for it. Had the nation not been created successfully, the desire for human rights would very likely never have been achieved (anywhere on earth)and yet the compromises required to be successful flew in the face of the clear statement of purpose in the Declaration. How could Jefferson have written the Declaration of Independence? Wasn't he compromised to the point of being unfit for the job? Wasn't all the high-falutin' language purely self-serving cant? And why weren't the Southern grandchildren of the signers perfectly-well within their rights to secede, whatever their motivation? I have sweated these questions for years and Ellis does a fabulous job of addressing them in terms of the tactical need to create the country that could resolve the issues that would realize the strategic objective. Oh, by the way: it's extremely well written, to boot; and the stories are very interesting. And I, like everyone else, came away with an even greater respect for the original George W. HE'S the reason it worked; HE alone: Simon Bolivar and Robbespierre just didn't measure up to his standards and that's the proof that the country had to be created and compromises had to be made to ensure that it was.
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Summary: Well Written Vignettes of the Founders
Review: This is a very well written book. Ellis has the talent of emphasizing the "story" part of history - a feat lacking in many works of the genre. The writing alone makes this a pleasurable read. The author's thesis - that the founders were brothers - in philosophy, thought, revolution and devotion to our new nation - is a correct semantic observation to a limited extent. What is presented in this book are the sibling rivalries as these brothers of '76 clashed over what the nation, constitution and the revolution itself meant twenty to thirty years later. Ellis does this through several dramatic vignettes. He first presents the Hamilton-Burr duel - sibling rivalry taken to a fratricidal extreme. There is some interesting interpretation as to whether or not Hamilton fired "up" or "over" Burr and whether or not he fired first. But what was represented in a larger sense was a duel between avarice, opportunism and pure selfish gamesmanship (Burr), and political warfare with a larger purpose (Hamilton). Other stories are fascinating. The tale of one of the great horse trades in U. S. History that ended up settling the seat of government on the Potomac River is detailed in "The Dinner." Ellis also covers the election of 1800, Washington's Farewell Address and the fascinating correspondence between Jefferson and Adams that ended, remarkably, on July 4th, 1826, when both died on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I liked this book. The prose moves and as mentioned, Ellis is very good at writing interesting history. On occasion, he made a few over-the-top statements (like saying Hamilton's keeping in close contact with Adams' cabinet members verged on the treasonable), but he avoids hyperbole or the wacky revisionism that seems to be in fashion to "sell" history these days. I must admit that the more I read of Jefferson and Adams as politicians statesmen, the better Adams comes off in comparison. These snapshots of our first governments don't tell the full story of the Federalist and Jeffersonian periods. They do, however, give a pleasing taste of the personalities and dealings as revolutionaries struggled to run the government they had made.
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Summary: Wonderful Look At Our Revolutionary Geniuses!
Review: This wonderful work relating the critical importance of the collective works of genius accomplished by this unlikely collection of kindred souls during the late eighteenth century is, for me, at least, an astonishing eye-opener. Author Joseph P. Ellis, the National Book Award winner for his book, "American Sphinx", focuses on several separate historical anecdotes that, to his mind, best illustrate the brilliance, scholarship and manifested tension surrounding what just may be the most astounding work of American history, that is, the successful initiation and completion of its collective body of public works ranging originally from the "Declaration of Independence" to the "Bill of Rights" to the "Constitution" by this remarkable collection of gifted individuals, each of whom made a stunning and sustained set of contributions to the collective enterprise we refer to as the American Revolution. As the author quickly convinces us, the state of the hoped for American polity in the decade following the end of the American Revolution was anything but stable and fully realized. On the contrary, there was a panoply of dangers, ranging from the strictly economic to subtly social to the manifestly political, any of which could threaten the continued success of the so-called American experiment. What these men accomplished, then, was to turn this quicksilver and rapidly changing set of economic, social and political properties into a more solid, enduring, and stable enterprise, one that could and did survive the death or political eclipse of its original creators. What the author examines so memorably here is a very thorny set of social and political issues and problems that each of these several protagonists, in a unique and creative fashion, sought to wrestle with and to eventually overcome. And so we are invited to view each of the protagonists, warts and all, as the very human actors they were, albeit on stages of national and even international proportions. Thus, through an examination of six different political and personal episodes, ranging from the famous Burr-Hamilton duel on a foggy morning in New York City to the famous Jefferson-Adams correspondence, demonstrate the extraordinary minds and hearts that were ultimately responsible for guaranteeing the fabulously unlikely success of the collective enterprise, often against what seemed like insuperable odds. In short, "Founding Brothers" gives the reader an immensely entertaining and most edifying reading experience. Rich in detail, it offers us a fascinating look at those men delivered up to us not as carved stone images, but as breathing, feeling, and very human individuals, men who fought their emotions, their pride, and their own prejudices to make a greater whole. I found this book to be a wonderful reading experience, and heartily recommend it. Enjoy!
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Summary: Brotherly Love
Review: Coming to this subject as a "general reader" who enjoyed U.S. History in High School (yes, I was one of those kids!), I found this collection of essays very interesting, and Prof. Ellis's analysis enlightening. His opening premise that the Revolution was more free-wheeling and improvisational than we now think of it is fascinating when viewed in the context of Gary Wills's "Inventing America" (I hope I have the title right) from the 1970s. In that book, Wills observes that Jefferson's language suggests that this otherwise-illegal rebellion was actually justified as a matter of natural and scientific law ("When in the course of human events it becomes necessary..." etc.) that was truly "self-evident." It is also interesting to compare and contrast (oh, those words!) Prof. Ellis's attitude to John Adams with the far more sympathetic tone of Mr. McCullough's recent biography. While Prof. Ellis clearly lacks the story-telling flair of Mr. McCullough (and the introduction makes a self-deprecating remark about his abilities in that regard), and while he is too much in love with the words "propitious" and "congealed," his insights are always interesting. His analysis of the Revolutionary generation's response to slavery is particularly clear-eyed and objective. He brings a career's worth of thinking to his subject, and it shows. I listened to the audio version from Recorded Books, which contains an interview with Prof. Ellis that is alone worth the price of admission. I disagree with another on-line reviewer who found the book more Adams-oriented and too critical of Jefferson. He clearly takes on Adams's personality and latent monarchistic tendencies. His analysis of the Jeffersonian personality seems dead-on, and is far from hostile or uncomplimentary.
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Summary: Should be required reading for American history buffs
Review: This is a compendium of the quirks, foibles, and faults of seven of the " Founding Fathers". Developing largely after the War of Independence, these character flaws caused a number of rifts among the people who referred to themselves as the "Band of Brothers". Emphasis is placed on the role of George Washington in almost single handedly keeping things together through his immense popularity and talents. A great emphasis is placed on the feud between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, showing how Jefferson was the first president to have more allegiance to a political party than to statesmanship. The extremely dirty presidential campaign between Jefferson and Adams is given a lot of coverage. Much is said about the issue of slavery and how it was largely kept under the surface in order to have cohesion between the northern and southern states. From the start, slavery was a specter, threatening to tear the revolution and then the fledgling country apart. So many things were against the experiment in a new kind of government that it seems a miracle that it could have developed, much less lasted. This book really brings out the tenuous nature of the revolution and the early republic. A number of worldwide events had to happen for the new country to be born and more so for it to succeed. Not less important were the rifts from within and the political ambitions of the country's most prominent citizens. The books main thesis is the politics and rifts among its seven historical characters. It does, however, show to some extent how the "Founding Brothers", in spite of their human faults, kept the country on its feet after the revolution - barely.
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