To use our price comparison to get the cheapest price, please click on the "Find the Cheapest Price" button located above for Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis (ISBN-10: 1587240068, ISBN-13: 9781587240065).
At this time we have not yet written a review for Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis (ISBN-10: 1587240068, ISBN-13: 9781587240065). Please continue to keep checking back to this page as we are constantly adding reviews.
Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic--John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
During the 1790s, which Ellis calls the most decisive decade in our nation's history, the greatest statesmen of their generation--and perhaps any--came together to define the new republic and direct its course for the coming centuries. Ellis focuses on six discrete moments that exemplify the most crucial issues facing the fragile new nation: Burr and Hamilton's deadly duel, and what may have really happened; Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison's secret dinner, during which the seat of the permanent capital was determined in exchange for passage of Hamilton's financial plan; Franklin's petition to end the "peculiar institution" of slavery--his last public act--and Madison's efforts to quash it; Washington's precedent-setting Farewell Address, announcing his retirement from public office and offering his country some final advice; Adams's difficult term as Washington's successor and his alleged scheme to pass the presidency on to his son; and finally, Adams and Jefferson's renewed correspondence at the end of their lives, in which they compared their different views of the Revolution and its legacy.
In a lively and engaging narrative, Ellis recounts the sometimes collaborative, sometimes archly antagonistic interactions between these men, and shows us the private characters behind the public personas: Adams, the ever-combative iconoclast, whose closest political collaborator was his wife, Abigail; Burr, crafty, smooth, and one of the most despised public figures of his time; Hamilton, whose audacious manner and deep economic savvy masked his humble origins; Jefferson, renowned for his eloquence, but so reclusive and taciturn that he rarely spoke more than a few sentences in public; Madison, small, sickly, and paralyzingly shy, yet one of the most effective debaters of his generation; and the stiffly formal Washington, the ultimate realist, larger-than-life, and America's only truly indispensable figure.
Ellis argues that the checks and balances that permitted the infant American republic to endure were not primarily legal, constitutional, or institutional, but intensely personal, rooted in the dynamic interaction of leaders with quite different visions and values. Revisiting the old-fashioned idea that character matters, Founding Brothers informs our understanding of American politics--then and now--and gives us a new perspective on the unpredictable forces that shape history.
Sibling Rivalry
| Customer Rating:   | It looked a lot prettier in those Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull paintings. If there's an overall theme to Joseph Ellis's 2000 book "Founding Brothers", it's that the United States was tempered as much by internal conflict as by war with Great Britain.
Ellis's approach deals with the aftermath of the American Revolution, post-Constitution, in six drawn-out narratives exploring various facets of the often-feuding Founding Fathers. He begins with the most famous and deadly of them, when Aaron Burr, then a sitting vice president, killed Alexander Hamilton for expressing disapproval of Burr's character. It was a duel, agreed to by both men, but a strange way for Burr to uphold his honor.
Ellis's treatment feels weak. As a story-teller, he muddies the waters by flipping back and forth in time, losing the suspense of "Interview at Weehawken" by teasing out various pet theories about the reason for the duel. As a historian, he misses some vital, commonly-known points, like Burr's gloating right after the duel and conjecture that Hamilton's pistol shot down a tree branch, which if true could confirm he had no intention of shooting Burr that day.
Ellis's middle chapters take on the question of how Washington, D.C. became the nation's capital; why slavery was allowed to remain in effect for so long; and what Washington was thinking when he either penned, or merely signed, his famous Farewell Address.
All of these chapters are readable, occasionally poignant. You get a sense of Washington as the supreme stoic in his standing behind an unpopular treaty. "Clouds may and doubtless often will in the vicissitudes of events, hover over political concerns, but a steady adherence to these principles will not only dispel but render our prospects brighter by such temporary obscurities," he writes.
But there is a lot of nothing in them, too. The chapter about Washington, D.C., "The Dinner", for all its scene-setting, doesn't establish any such dinner, to talk over locating the Capital and assuming state debts, really took place at all. Ellis presents the slavery question well enough, but struggles with coherent storyline. The idea was the South didn't want to end slavery, and the North didn't want the South to leave the Union. But as with the Dinner, there is some mystery as to the particulars which Ellis doesn't dispel.
The last two chapters of "Founding Brothers" give it life, memorableness, and probably that Pulitzer. It focuses on two Founders, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, in kind of a bookend way to Burr and Hamilton. Jefferson and Adams also had a bitter fallout, but patched things up and corresponded over their last 14 years. Adams is portrayed more positively, which seems to me fitting, but not without his peevish flaws. Jefferson was a hypocrite on slavery and a consummate fabulist about everything, but it was hard to hold that too much against him when one of those inventions was America.
Ellis presents the pair as the yin and yang of early America; Adams earthy and rooted to reality, Jefferson the dreamer. Jefferson had the ability to construct an edifice, Adams the cussedness to look for structural flaws with brilliant argumentation. In the end, you had a sturdy dwelling, but some hard feelings it took the two a while to resolve.
They did resolve it, though, holding out hope for Americans decades and centuries hence that what unites us can overcome what divides us. It's a nice lesson, presented subtly, but feels more tacked on than it should in this somewhat unfocused book. |
Really there was no syllabus to follow!
| Customer Rating: | Joseph Ellis has written another book which is completely different than all his other historical efforts. He has taken a rather different look at America in its infancy.
In this effort, Ellis focus is on a half a dozen political personages. The six people in this study are John Adams, George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
This rather eclectic group helped to form the precedents and the very foundation of our government.
Ellis goes on to explain how each of these people contributed to the formation of our government. He explains the settlement of the issue of the placement of our capital of Washington. It was determined to be an area in Virginia to placate the Southern Republicans. The trade off was the Federal Government assuming all state debts thus strengthening Hamilton's Federalist position as Secretary of the Treasury.
Also noted was the beginnings of party politics which was not done as it is today in doing direct political attacks. In our Country's infancy it was done with pseudonyms in the newspapers to attack opposing ideas.
These attacks became so severe that in John Adams' administration the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed. In reality this was the suppression of the first amendment. One must remember this was before the strong Supreme Court of John Marshall! One must realize, everything was new and untested. The Country was young and was seeking its own direction.
As Ellis recounts all was not easy in the formation of our government. As Michiko Kakutuni explains in her New York Times Book Review Ellis' book is a "lively and illuminating epic, if somewhat arbitrary book that leaves the reader with a visceral sense of a formative era in American life."
I agree with her. This is an excellent read of which you will learn much.
|
GLAD I FOUND THESE BROTHERS
| Customer Rating: | | I followed McCullough's 1776 and John Adams to Joseph Ellis' remarkable compilation of stories centered around the exploits of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Burr, Hamilton and Madison. The political intrigue, posturing, and backstabbing that takes place in these stories is rendered more fascinating in that it takes place in the shadow of America's newly won independence. The traits displayed in these stories compliment the sheer genius of these men, and leave the reader with multidimensional founding fathers as opposed to the cardboard heroes we were taught to worship in elelmentary school. Washington the land speculator, Burr the murderer, Hamilton the monarch in the making, the two faced Jefferson, and the honorable Adams. This history is simply missing from our history books. These stories are incredibly worthwhile and they detail with which they are presented is remarkable. Forget the history buff, this is a must read for everyone. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation |
it seemed like a good idea at the time
| Customer Rating: | There is a great tendency to deify the "founding fathers" these days. As if by invoking the phrase "founding fathers", you can gain their approval. Founding Brothers explains very well that the American Revolution didn't happen for us. It happened because the folks who carried it out did it for themselves. Their biggest motivation was the idea that they could get away with it. After that they had to make up the rest as they went along. It was ok: the rewards for succeeding would be the Northwest Territories. It is a good thing this happened before socialism, or it would have been described as socialism by the British and the French Monarchy.
The primary difference between Hamilton and Burr was that Hamilton could balance a check book.
There were also differences between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Thomas Jefferson was good at venerating freedom and Farmers, yet lived as a slave holder and a Planter. Some say he would have freed his slaves if the price of land ever appreciated enough. Land didn't appreciate much, because there was so much new land in the northwest territory and louisiana purchase. John Adams worked for a living and as a yeoman farmer. John Adams could also balance a checkbook. |
They all hung together, more or less
| Customer Rating: | I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of tales about a number of the founding fathers, and their relations with each other. The opening vignette has to do with the Burr- Hamilton duel and in the course of this Ellis tells the personal history of each of the protagonists. I learned more about Burr than I learned in grade school or for that matter graduate- school , and this grandson of Jonathan Edwards was revealed to be a far more competent and two- faced politician than even the traditional stereotype of him as traitor, suggests. Hamilton too is shown to be a bit different than I had imagined, and was in fact on a downhill course politically when the duel took place. Ellis does a wonderful job in filling in the historical background and significance.
I also greatly enjoyed the piece on Washington's farewell including the 'realistic' description of how Washington actually looked. Nonetheless Ellis affirms his greatness, and his clear role as natural leader and first great American hero.
The final vignette has to do with the twelve- year correspondance of Adams and Jefferson. What is wonderful here is the way Ellis traces the whole story of their long relationship, their working together in the most critical moments and on the most critical documents of the Revolution, their falling out over their struggle for the Presidency, their coming to 'make- up' through the services of Benjamin Rush and through a letter of condolence written by Abigail Adams to Jefferson at the loss of his young daughter. Ellis describes how each of the great men uses the Letters to justify his own view of the Revolution. No matter how times one reads about it one cannot help be moved by the story of their dying five hours from each other on July 4, 1826, at the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration.
For any lover of American history this work is simply a very great pleasure to read. |
|
