 "They all hung together, more or less " | 2008-09-14 |
| - Reviewed By shalomfn |
| 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. br /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. br /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.br /For any lover of American history this work is simply a very great pleasure to read. |
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| "Band of brothers" | 2008-09-08 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2G3U6AM951P6D |
| Ellis brings to well-crafted life the fragile nature of the American experiment in the first years after the revolution and the Constitution. He uses six short stories or incidents to frame this so-fragile balance between war and peace, Federalist and Republican, the very success or ignominious death of the American experiment: br /br /--The Burr/Hamilton duel (in which Burr, the sitting VP shot and killed Hamilton.br /br /--The compromise dinner (one of many clandestine efforts at the time) between Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison to log-roll a compromise to get federal debt assumption and the location of the future capital agreed to the satisfaction of all.br /br /--One none-event as such, "The Silence" over slavery, which debate was postponed by the Constitutional Convention, but reopened by Quakers, and quickly silenced again by honest and moral men of both pro-slavery and anti-slavery dispositions as detrimental to the continuation of the American experiment.br /br /--Washington's Farewell Address, which established the free and willing succession of power in a vast republic, a thing to be marveled at (see: Revolution, French).br /br /--The collaboration between first Adams and Jefferson as Revolutionary partners, than John and Abigail versus Jefferson and Madison as enemies in the bitter partisan struggle of the two president's terms (1796-1808).br /br /--And finally, the reconciliation between the last two standing of this greatest generation, this "band of brothers" (yes, the phrase used by Jefferson and Adams) in their 15-year correspondence concluding with death on July 4, 1826 within five hours on the 50th anniversary of the celebration of their rise to aristocracy!br /br /Ellis is a good storyteller, and I wept silently reading the final events in realization of the 180 years since how much we how to these great men and their leadership and sacrifice for the greatest experiment in human government. |
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 "Why am I even reading this?" | 2008-08-18 |
| - Reviewed By melunna |
OK so I read this book for school and had to write about each chapter. After trying to get through the Preface, I discovered this:
-one, Ellis feels the need to blather on needlessly. This book could have been easily been half the length had the author known the value of good editing
-two, apparently he has never heard of organized writing. You do not talk about one thing, talk about another and then repeatedly go back and forth. It makes this even more confusing to follow along.
-three, hey random interesting facts are cool, but they belong somewhere else, not stuck in the middle of sentence that has a completely different topic.
- four, is this guy a mind reader with a time machine? How does he know what all these guys are thinking at random points in their life? Primary documents will only take you so far. Anything i saw with this kind of tone i did not write about considering it did not look very reliable
Don't get me wrong the book has it moments. The topics for each chapter are very interesting and under normal circumstances would have been enjoyable to learn about. Just tell me when they republish this thing, reworked and edited. |
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 "A Primer for Further Study" | 2008-08-10 |
| - Reviewed By viapanam |
I am not a scholar in early American Republic, so there are simply aspects of this book I can not discuss. But I can say that for a reader who takes history seriously, and wants a quick introduction to some of the primary characters who populated the political history of that period, this is a fine book. Let me get my biggest complaint out of the way first. For the true novice in the history of the Republic, there is no attempt to create a narrative that introduces the central themes nor timeline. There is an assumption on the author's part that you know the differences between Republicans and Federalists; they you understand the temporal and historical difference between 1776 and the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Continental Congress 10 years later. Without this introduction, I had trouble putting some one the book in proper context.
That said, the book focuses on people, and less on events. It paints serious portraits of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington - just to name a few - and how the interaction between these people gave rise to the Republic. It's very well written, and in large, quite readable. I found that the chapter titled "The Farewell" was a bit less tight, or well constructed than others; on the opposite side, I found the final chapter, "The Friendship," to be compelling reading. I also found the bond between John and Abigail Adams quite fascinating; she was, while always in the background, his main advisor and certainly trusted confident. A fascinating relationship that deserves a book of its own (I suspect there are already hundreds). The book is really just a primer that sets up some of the basic dichotomies that characterized the early Republic, and rather than solve them or fully explain them, it really just sets you up for further study.
I certainly recommend it; I just might suggest you read a book like Gordon S. Wood "The American Revolution" before this one, so you have a context in which to place these chapters. If you already have that background, then jump in. Ellis says that the book is largely a compendium of a lifetime of study, and for many of us, it may be the beginning of our study of the period |
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| "A very entertaining must-read for all Americans" | 2008-08-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3LPJAVGUMYRHG |
| I came to this book too after watching the suberb John Adams mini-series. I wanted to learn more about some of the other early leaders of our nation. The history I learned in grade school was fleshed out here and then some. All of the chapters dealing with different defining moments in the post-revolutionary period were interesting and entertaining. I appreciated the way the book was arranged in short chapters with the major players, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Burr, and Hamilton weaving in and out of the story. You gain an appreciation of how difficult it was to keep our new United States together among a host of complicated issues. I discovered several very interesting parallels to the politics of today. The more things change, the more they stay the same as far as human nature is concerned. I recommend this book to all interested in the story of our country. A must-read for all Americans. |
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| "I learned something new about a familiar subject" | 2008-07-10 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3G326R9YCU7MR |
| Even though I'd seen and heard multiple items about the founding generation, I was pleasantly surprised that I learned something new from this work...namely that the discussion of the location of the new capital was seriously sidetracked by an abolitionist delegation's visit (which was even blessed by fellow abolitionist Ben Franklin shortly before his death). Highly Recommended, a great yarn. |
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 "Too much of a good thing?" | 2008-07-08 |
| - Reviewed By bbigham |
NOTE: THIS REFER REFERS TO THE UNABRIBED AUDIO CD VERSION
First of all, I'm not going to get into the controversy over whether this book is totally accurate historically. If I knew that, I'd be writing a history book rather than reading one. The fact is, no one can be 100% sure of everything that happened or was thought 250 years ago.
That issue aside, it's an interesting book but it gets bogged down in far too much detail and analyses. It isn't scholarly enough for a truly academic treatise, but not "entertaining" enough for a popular history. It may therefore bore some readers who prefer a more humanized anecdotal telling and infuriate purists who want proven facts rather than occasional speculation.
The reader is good, but his voice tends to take on a droning quality if listened to for long periods. There is not enough differentiation for the quoted passages, so it's sometimes hard to tell what is a historical quote and what it the author's statements.
From reading other reviews, I think it's safe to say that this is book may be too lengthy and "boring" for young students (which may be a sad commentary on both our youth and our school system) yet not scholarly enough for serious American history fans. The problem is, who's left?
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| "I just cant decide." | 2008-06-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: ALDL4LCIJ4FQH |
I'm giving this book 4 Stars. I was going to go with 3, but based on the works readability and style I believe that there is something to be taken away by everyone. The information presented by Ellis will interest the scholarly historian as well as the casually curious reader. The former of the two readers may busy themselves more with disputing some of the poorly cited, questionable material presented within the pages of this book.
If I have it right, Ellis was attempting to portray the founders as a group of thoroughly human participants that possessed the omniprescence to grasp the scope of what their actions meant to history. This fundamental paradox of presentation left me scratching my head in search of the authors true motives. Was Ellis attempting to unite us with the men and politics of the Founding generation or was he furthering the mystification of these men, by adding to the accumulated material that presents them as histoical deities.
Regardless of the overall impression the book leaves on you, I am sure, the reader will find themselves entertained from start to finish. |
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| "A tasteful look into each of those fascinating men" | 2008-05-02 |
| - Reviewed By User: AGWZR7PNIZUWA |
| In the afterglow of the HBO series on John Adams, I grew interested in some of the founding fathers, many of whom had seemed boring to me ever since I read their bios in grade school. Ellis does a highly intelligent and readable job of laying out the personalities, conflicts and battles of the whole group during the first years of the nation. I particularly like the chapter on the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Also great is the chapter about George Washington, who had seemed a cardboard character to me until my interest was piqued by the TV series. Ellis is more than a little inclined to repeat himself in that particular way academics have, although his ruminations are likely to advance the story, although a bit wordily. That aside, this book is worth digging into by anyone who wants to know what those guys were really all about and who doesn't want to be told by some ideologue what to think about them. |
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| "A Superb and Excellent Book" | 2008-05-01 |
| - Reviewed By mcfawn |
If I had to recommend one book to read in a year, I would recommend The Founding Brothers.
Joseph Ellis recounts the early stages of American history with six historically-based tales about the Founding Fathers or, as he thinks of them, the Founding Brothers. The stories of Jefferson, John Adams, Madison, Washington, Hamilton, and Franklin (more of a Founding Grandfather, Ellis asserts) highlight how the period after the Revolutionary War was the most politically treacherous in our nation's history. It was the Founding Brother's talents and foresight that allowed them build a country out of a revolution which, in most cases, falls short of ideals because of personal ambitions.
The stories of the Founding Brothers is completely factual, however, the stories are written so that the reader can see the emotional and personal character aspects that the Brothers experienced during the early years of our nation. The stories are interconnected and woven so that even though each of the stories highlight different facets of the nation's early history (the ratification of the Constitution, the question of slavery, the infamous duel at Weehawken, the location of the new republic's capitol), the major players remain the same. Their personalities are built together to create interesting and insightful history.
This book won the Pulitzer Prize. After reading, I found that to be no surprise at all. It's an excellent read with a blend of wit, conviviality, learnedness, and intelligence. |
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