Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

This is simply my favorite history book that I have ever read. Amazing. I could not put it down. Ellis took a series of important and interesting stories among the founding fathers and gave those great individuals life. The best three chapters were The Duel, The Dinner and The Friendship. There was never a dull moment in this book, which seamlessly incorporated all the key founders and showed what made them great. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Listening to this book, I was struck at how much alike the philosopher kings who started our nation were to us. The politics was bitter, and hatreds deep, and the society entertaining and lively. I got to know John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others in ways that made not only interesting listening, but established a kinship and feeling that our founding fathers were not demi-gods, but extraordinary human beings.

While we justifiably revere the "Founding Fathers" of the American Revolution, they were not gods descended from Mount Olympus. This is not to say they weren't great men and didn't accomplish something truly remarkable and unprecedented in world history. But they were not perfect and infallible beings, and in fact, were as guilty of pettiness, jealousy, and vanity as anyone today. In this terrific book, Joseph Ellis brings to life these historical giants and examines not only their tremendous accomplishments but also the real men who accomplished them.

The book is a series of chapters each focusing on various events and personalities who played prominent parts in the American Revolution. Chapter 1 discusses the events that led up to the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, the differences and history that ended in the physical death of Hamilton and the political death of Burr. Chapter 2 revolves around Hamilton's plans for the financial stability of the nation, why many opposed it, and how Jefferson and Madison brokered a deal (in spite of their opposition). Chapter 3 examines the farewell address of George Washington, how it not only answered his critics, but laid out his idea for the nation and set a precedent for time limits in office. Chapter 4 discusses the divisive issue of slavery, the early attempts at emancipation, the resistance, and the eventual silence. Chapters 5 and 6 deal with the Adams/Jefferson friendship, their falling out, and latter reconciliation.

And while I tend to favor the final chapter (the friendship renewal), I found all of it enjoyable. And I appreciate the approach Ellis takes to history, bringing these great men to life in believable proportions. He acknowledges that Adams is his favorite, with his politically-savvy wife, volatile temper, and tendency to speak his mind even when it didn't benefit his political career. And he points out that nearly all of them were acutely aware that they were on the leading edge of something historically grand, and were careful to leave their legacies written down. Or, as Ellis puts it: they were posing for posterity.

Writing Style: Some chapters have you turning the pages at break neck spead, while a couple are so dry as to almost make you want to ditch the whole book. He tends to overuse quotations and repeat the same point over and over in differnt ways. That said, as history writers go Ellis isn't so bad.

Depth/Context: You should have some basic understanding of the revolutionary era in order to make this a smooth read. He describes the book like this (not verbatim, but you will get the point)...history is like the ocean and i am on a boat sailing along and dunk buckets into the ocean. This book can be described as the contents of those buckets, rich and deep moments within the ocean, not an overview of the ocean itself.

This novel is undoubtedly historically accurate, but it is too boring to read. It delineates the major events that led to the founding of the United States providing detailed summaries of our founding fathers. Some of the stories are very interesting, such as the Hamilton Burr duel; however, others are easy to skip. This book provides an immense amount of history and information that any student in a US History course would want to know, but this book should not be read for pure simple entertainment because it has more analysis then plot.

Although this piece of work and Joseph Ellis in particular are very renown, I had a very difficult time reading this novel and wanted to skip a few pages every other page. Thirty pages discussing one duel is too much for me to handle and I eventually became lost and confused on what was happening. I did not pick up a lot from this novel because it is not written for amusement, but instead for research and for furthering knowledge on these historical figures.

I did not enjoy reading this, but it may just be my preference for a more suspenseful page turner. For any patient person interested in history, this is an excellent book because it provides more than enough information, but for all who are easily bored, beware.