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Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (平装)
by Joseph J. Ellis
| Category:
American history, Biography |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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MSL rating:
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| MSL Pointer Review:
A masterpiece biography of the founders of America from one of America's top historians. |
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AllReviews |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 14 items |
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Izaak VanGarlen (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-22 00:00>
Using the model of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians, Joseph Ellis has written a series of stories about crucial events that shaped the outcome of the American Revolution. The events deal with the character and relationships of the most eminent members of the Revolutionary Generation: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and to a lesser extent Benjamin Franklin and Aaron Burr. The main point that this book is trying to make is that the character of the individuals and their bonds prevented the republic from breaking up into bloody violence, and ultimately determined the character of the republic - hence the title Founding Brothers. Other subsequent revolutions - such as the French and Russian - were unable or not as lucky to prevent internecine bloodshed that the Founding Brothers were able to avoid.
The episodes that Ellis chronicles take place in the turbulent 1790's, at a time when the outcome of the revolution was still unpredictable. Ellis describes the famous 1790 dinner party hosted by Jefferson, which he calls " the most meaningful dinner party in American history." The guests at the party were Madison and Hamilton. All came with different agendas but ultimately they reached an agreement whereby Southerners would accept Hamilton's plan for the federal assumption of state debt in exchange for placing the nation's capital on the banks of the Potomac. The consequences of this 200-year-old bargain still live with us today, as well as the rivalry that this bargain belies. Hamilton believed that the new nation needed a strong federal government and a central banking system to better serve the nation's interests. Jefferson, on the other hand, believed the future would belong to the small farmer and the westward expansion of the settlers; he saw America as an agrarian republic with a weak central government that would avoid the tyranny of the European nation-states.
Ellis points out correctly that the Founding Brothers avoided the issue of slavery for the sake of unity. Jefferson - a master of self-deception - was a slaveholder and an advocate of ending slavery; he considered the pro-slavery speeches of Congress "a moral embarrassment." This avoidance can be seen as a failure of statesmanship on the part of the Founders, as other historian have. The issue wasn't resolved until much later when it became the Civil War and ended up costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
Even though at times Ellis entertains the notion of a people's history, he remains a traditional historian in the sense that he believes leaders are the prime movers of historical change, and that character is destiny. |
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Richard Novak (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-22 00:00>
History is messy. We like ours in any shade but grey. Keys, laws, systems; Americans love everything spelled out. Washington and Jefferson? On Mount Rushmore and our money. Hamilton and Franklin get money, too. Adams? Rush? Madison? Second-tier, or else people would learn more about them, right?
One of the things I enjoyed about this book was Ellis' demonstrating the difference between life in its fluid, messy glory and history in its contained rigidity. He begins with the Burr-Hamilton duel as the backdrop against which change is measured. I think, though, a much better illustration of the forces playing upon the Revolutionary Generation is seen through the John Adams-Thomas Jefferson relationship.
Ellis does a commendable job of showing the friendship the two leaders had, and how that is affected by events sometimes but not always out of their control. In the process, he presents several points that hold relevance today:
A governmental leader commits acts that, in today's view, would be considered treasonous.
A President's wife is his most trusted support and advisor; almost a co-President,
By mutual agreement of all parties, a conspiracy of silence reigns in what would be the most controversial and fractious issue of the day.
Despite what is thrown at it, however misused or abused, a freindship endures. This, for me, is the lesson and the legacy of this Revolutionary Generation as epitomized by Adams and Jefferson: though tried by the fires of circumstance, a freindship that rises above the fray can and will live on.
"... Adams realized that the act of tranforming the American Revolution into history placed a premium on selecting events and heroes that fit neatly into a dramatic formula, thereby distorting the more tangled and incoherent experience that participants actually making the history felt at the time.
Jefferson's drafting of the Declaration of Independence was a perfect example of such dramatic distortions. The Revolution in this romantic rendering became one magical moment of inspiration, leading inevitably to the forgone conclusion of American independence.
The real drama of the Revolution...was its inherent madness. This meant recovering the exciting but terrifying sense that all the major players had at the time-namely, that they were making it up as they went along, improvising on the edge of catastrophe."
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B. Jemella (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-22 00:00>
Joseph Ellis takes us on a welcomed step back from the abbreviated history many of us twenty-somethings likely endured in our school's texts as children, where key moments and figures in our nations infancy are reduced to names, dates, and locations. By providing a glimpse into the minds of our nations founders through their own words and in the context of a richly developed historical backdrop, Ellis allows us to see through the eyes of giants of American History.
And it is only through the inclusion of the human element that we are truly able to understand, appreciate, and savour the names and dates memorization renders lifeless. A common theme throughout is what seems obvious to us in hindsight, was far from a foregone conclusion at the time. Ellis skillfully demonstrates through five stories how the unique personalities and talents of each of the "Founding Brothers" working in harmony and discord steered our nation to a safer port; notably leaving the fight over slavery, intentionally and with consternation as Ellis details, to the following generations.
This, simply put, is how US history should be taught. Not just that Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton, but who were Hamilton and Burr as men beyond their historical contributions? Perhaps most significantly, how did our founders relate to one another and promote their competing visions for the direction our Great Republican Experiment would take? The latter is a question every Citizen and future citizen should consider. Certainly it is what we should be teaching our children.
I cannot recommend this book in strong enough terms to any person interested in not just learning about early US history but building a contextual understanding of those that lived it.
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Roger Thompson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-22 00:00>
I first thought Founding Brothers was an odd choice of titles for Joseph Ellis's recent look at the leaders of the Revolutionary era. One could hardly put James Madison in the same generation as Ben Franklin. But I think it may be a deep brotherhood than that. Ellis's focus is on the relationships among the founders. We know, of course, that they were a group that all generally knew each other personally and had shared in the Spirit of 76 at the time. What, exactly, does this then mean?
What it means is that how they related to each other is as important as what specifically they thought and did. Ellis presents the reader with six episodes in early national history, in each emphasizing some topic and one or more pairs or groups of personalities. Beginning with the Hamilton Burr duel as the exception that proves the rule, Ellis explains how the enormous dislike and distrust that certain founders had for one another could become vicious and personal beyond what we know in politics today. Compared to revolutions like the contemporary French, to say nothing of the later Russian or Chinese, which tore themselves apart from inside, the American revolutionaries managed to remain, if not always even civil, then at least within the bounds of the law. The Hamilton Burr duel, besides being the single noteworthy exception, seems so placid in comparison to the Reigns of Terror that took over elsewhere that even in deadly conflict, our Revolution remained civilized. Moreover, the resulting single death essentially moved dueling from an illegal but overlooked activity to something truly distasteful.
Other chapters take less extreme cases, showing how sectional and even personal differences could result in great acrimony, but also great compromise, even if sometimes the compromise was to agree not to mention something (slavery, for example). Besides the conflicts, Ellis shows how partnerships grew and blossomed (Jefferson and Madison), or grew, shrank, vanished, and re-emerged (Jefferson and Adams). The emphasis remains generally on the relationships rather than any single individuals or particular issues, though Ellis does of course tell us what the issues are.
Ultimately, the reader will judge this work on whether or not these connections seem meaningful or important. One should not underestimate Ellis's skill as a writer, and I note that he managed to win a Pulitzer for Founding Brothers. It is well deserved. To recite the frequently overused phrase, Ellis has made history come alive for us between these two covers.
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