Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

"Founding Brothers, The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis expertly navigates through the tangled web of contradictions, idealisms, accusations, and personal rivalries that ultimately shaped America's destiny. Ellis's depiction of documented eyewitness accounts, correspondences, and hearsay offers an enlightening journey into the intricate lives of America's Founding Brothers. George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and John Adams take center stage as the principal Founding Brothers whose extraordinary mix of personality and idealism set the nation's course.
Ellis refers to the 1790's as "the most decisive decade in our nation's history." The most gifted intellectuals of their generation gathered together and collectively laid the foundation for the delicate, fledgling nation, ultimately directing its growth and expansion for the forthcoming centuries. In a lively and engaging narrative, Ellis recounts the occasionally collaborative, sporadically egotistical, and incessantly patronizing relations among these extraordinary gentlemen, effectively portraying the private individuals behind the public personas.
Founding Brothers is divided into six chapters in which Ellis focuses on six discrete moments that exemplify the most crucial issues, policy decisions, and economic factors impacting the young nation's preliminary development. The issues range from Jefferson's "dinner party" negotiation to a dissection of the complex quarrel and camaraderie of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Each chapter is approximately forty pages in length, which allows its audience to appreciate the complexity of the story, as well as the intricate character of the founders themselves.
Following a brief glimpse at the events and mind-sets of the generation, Ellis reconstructs the fatal duel between Burr and Hamilton, the solitary instance in "the revolutionary generation when political difference ended in violence and death rather than in ongoing argument." Ellis' dramatic style seizes his audience's focus as he impartially investigates the evidence and permits the readers to draw our own conclusions as to what actually occurred on that bleak morning in July. Ellis does an eloquent job of illustrating that even with a wealth of documented evidence, contradictory testimony and documentation can leave historians perplexed as to what actually transpired. The reader comes away from the book with a better understanding that historical knowledge and perception are limited to narratives and documents bequeathed by previous generations.
This Pulitzer Prize-winning book emphasizes the mortal persona of the founders by replacing the legendary title "Fathers" with the more realistic and accessible term "Brothers." Ellis proficiently accentuates in "The Dinner" the significance that a handful of politicians engaged in a modest buffet could essentially establish a precedent for federal power in United States. Unfortunately, the capability of the few to set the standard for generations to come has created a modern day stereotypic perception of the Founding Brothers as one of flawless perfection. In "The Silence", Ellis exemplifies the lack of infallibility of the founders in the first congressional debate concerning petitions to eradicate slavery. Ellis efficiently dispels any false notions that the United States or its Founding Brothers were naturally ideal by illuminating the tribulations that arose from being forced to contend with an establishment so deeply rooted in the nation's social and economic existence.
Founding Brothers solidifies its readers' understanding of American politics and offers a new perspective on the unpredictable forces that shape history. Ellis contrasts Washington the realist, and Jefferson, "for whom ideals were the supreme reality and whose inspirational prowess derived from his confidence that the world would eventually come around to fit the picture he had in his head," to assert that although checks and balances permitted the infant American republic to endure, the motive for its creation was not constitutional or legalistic, but intensely personal, rooted in the dynamic interaction of politicians with a combination of strong opinions, distinctive values, and unique visions.
Ellis's style is crisp and overflowing with clever irony. He offers fresh insights to worn-out subject matter, such as the Hamilton-Burr duel. The fundamental premise running through Founding Brothers is that the founders constituted a unique faction of individuals who were capable of forging a new nation only through personal and professional divergence. Ellis fittingly refers to this era as "one long shouting match between those, like Hamilton, who championed the power of the central government and those, like Jefferson, who defended the rights of states and individuals."

As a teacher who taught American History to high school students (not AP kids, but still..) for 25 years, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the events before, during and after the Revolutionary War. I am greatly humbled by this book, which brings new information and understandings to those critical decades. The book is a page-turner, even though the reader knows how it all turned out. I strongly recommend this book to everyone, history buff or not. Ellis is particularly skilled at giving both sides of each story. Heroes become goats and vice versa, and then they reverse positions before three pages have gone by. Terrific read.

Founding Brothers is an excellent history, presented in an interesting format. I gave it to our Grandson, HS freshman; he was quite pleased with how much he learned that reinforced his school lessons.

While this text was well-written, I struggled to get through it.

There's lots of useful, probably reasonably historically accurate information in the text, true. But, first, the worship of George Washington is so prevalent as to be offensive. We seem to be in a period in which we applaud those who ostensibly founded us...what I've called treating them like "Disney characters." I'm a little skeptical of G. Washington. First, Mason Weems created a fantasy of George that I think GW's allies rather liked. We must not forget, though, that Washington was a wealthy white guy who owned slaves. (At Mount Vernon, since they created an "education center" about a year ago, they've all but produced an apotheosis of him, just like the art work on the capital rotunda!)

Then there's the "facts" that were simply wrong. The ones I remember are that "Washington was a hair under 6'4"." No, he was 6'2". And "James Madison was 5'6"." No, he was somewhere between 4'11" and 5'2" (depending on how much the describer liked him). Trivia? Not really when you're suggesting facts; their erroneous nature challenges the credibility of the whole text!

What's more, he wasn't successful in, for example, the French and Indian War. In short, GW was a human being. So, in fact, were Tom Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams, and the others in the book. But the book reads like they were fairy tale characters.

Something in the book too that bordered on offensive was the use of the phrase "band of brothers" at least 6 times. All right, John, so you think you're coining some kind of logo for the boys. Don't overdo it!

Then I don't remember if it was in the text or in the interview with the author at the end (I listened to the recorded version of it) but the author included value judgements which I thought were inappropriate to a scholarly document. One I remember is his connecting capitalism with democracy, a connection of "our system" with a market economy as if they were as natural as breathing air. Allow the reader to make his or her own decision. I don't need that sort of editorializing.

Truth be told, I was a little skeptical of the text when I found that the author had taught at West Point for years. I guess my experience with big organizations has convinced me that people make it in such structures (e.g., the army, especially the academy realm) by either believing the "right" things and/or by saying the right things to the right people at the right times. That's why such value judgements and Disney characterization might be appropriate to a member of such a structure as the army/West Point.

But, the fact is, the book is well written. So, if you feel especially ignorant of the beginning of US history, this might be a volume to read...skeptically.

This splendid book takes us back to the fight for independence of our country, the early beginnings which led to the Declaration of Independence. We've grown up looking at their pictures hanging on the school room walls and at other places. The Great Hall of the Library of Congress beautifully displays this early history for all generations to visit and marvel at these couragous American leaders. The portrait of George Washington who could not tell a lie, has been used in many movies and was on the wall of the store clerk's apartment in "Bundle Of Joy," and many others. It is the best known. Ben Franklin represented America in other places as a statesman and was an inventor of the first class. He came up with rhymes and common sense for the early settlers of the Eastern states.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were prominent in the Declaration of Independence composing, and who could forget John Hancock. Joseph Ellis gives details of the bickering and in-fighting to finally complete this important document. Minerva, a marble mosaic, is located on the landing of the staircase leading to the Visitors' Gallery (the heart of the Library). The quotation in Latin beneath was from Horace's Ars Poetica: "Not unwilling. Minerva erects a monument more lasting than brass."