Review by Choice Review
Through eight biographical sketches of the founders--Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Adams, Paine, and Burr (who serves as a counter example)--eminent historian Wood (Brown Univ.) examines why the founding generation contained so many effective political leaders and, ironically, why the world they unleashed would not likely produce a subsequent generation of great leaders. Schooled in the Enlightenment concept of disinterested public service, the founding generation valued the notion of a gentleman of affairs who sacrificed personally for the common good and employed rhetoric to persuade other gentlemen of the need for united action. These were aristocratic beliefs; but unlike European assumptions in the mid-18th century, behavior and actions, not birth, determined standing as a gentleman. A broadened franchise and political legitimacy rooted in consent, plus territorial and commercial expansion, brought a democratic ethic to the US, making anachronistic the political world of the founders. Public opinion and individual attainment, not enlightened leadership by a small circle of elites, became the rudders of 19th-century politics. Read alongside Sean Wilentz's The Rise of American Democracy (CH, Mar'06, 43-4243), this is an engaging study of the lost political culture of the 18th century. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. E. R. Crowther Adams State College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Easily one of the top historians of the American Revolution in current practice, Wood gathers here his previously published articles about the Founding Fathers. Focused on eight of them--the usual suspects plus Thomas Paine and Aaron Burr--Woods homes in on qualities they regarded as attributes of character. As Woods explains in his cogent introduction, the Founders conceived of character utterly differently than its contemporary meaning as a composite of inner traits, flaws, and morality. They understood it to be one's exterior presentation as a gentleman in speech, bearing, erudition, and, with regard to political participation, disinterestedness. Gentlemanly status had to be cultivated--the Founders were assiduous autodidacts--and the concept underlay their political theorizing about restraining monarchical or democratic despotism. Such are among Woods' many intriguing analyses, which ought to lure veterans of Joseph Ellis' popular collective portrait, Founding Brothers (2000). --Gilbert Taylor Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bancroft and Pulitzer Prize-winner Wood suggests that behind America's current romance with the founding fathers is a critique of our own leaders, a desire for such capable and disinterested leadership as was offered by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Provocatively, Wood argues that the very egalitarian democracy Washington and Co. created all but guarantees that we will "never again replicate the extraordinary generation of the founders." In 10 essays, most culled from the New York Review of Books and the New Republic, Wood offers miniature portraits of James Madison, Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Paine. The most stimulating chapter is devoted to John Adams, who died thinking he would never get his due in historians' accounts of the Revolution; for the most part, he was right. This piece is an important corrective; Adams, says Wood, was not only pessimistic about the greed and scrambling he saw in his fellow Americans, he was downright prophetic-and his countrymen, then and now, have never wanted to reckon with his critiques. Wood is an elegant writer who has devoted decades to the men about whom he is writing, and taken together, these pieces add perspective to the founding fathers cottage industry. (May 22) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Presenting a series of essays he has published previously and heavily revised here, Pulitzer Prize winner Wood focuses on the Founding Fathers, whose achievements he notes are still so highly ranked by Americans today. Wood is at his best when writing about George Washington and Aaron Burr, noting with regard to the former that his character was perfectly suited to his time: his backing of the proposed federal Constitution was crucial, and he governed with "no precedents to follow." Wood crystallizes his own opinion of Burr by defining him as "a self-assured aristocrat using his public office in every way he could to make money." This book also includes essays on Jefferson, Franklin, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and, in perhaps the book's one flaw, John Adams. Wood makes much of John Adams's pessimism about the future of the country while glossing over his real contributions to the independence movement and his writing of the Massachusetts Constitution, which is still in use today. All in all, this is a very readable book; recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/06.]-Karen Sutherland, Bartlett P.L., IL Law & Crime (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-There is no shortage of new titles assessing the character and contributions of America's founders, but this excellent book is particularly well suited to high school students. Wood has selected eight remarkable men to profile: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and Aaron Burr. After describing how their reputations have undergone changes through the years, sometimes honored, sometimes reviled, the author discusses the men in terms of their own times. A chapter is devoted to each one, but these essays are not simple biographical sketches. Wood establishes his subjects' social and economic backgrounds, but then focuses on their personalities and philosophies, revealed through their correspondence. Trying to establish a meritocracy during an age of aristocracy was a daunting process, and the founders often became one another's adversaries. Their shrewd and sometimes caustic observations showed the difficulties involved in coming to a consensus on vital issues. Insecurities, humor, brilliance, and bewilderment abounded, all described in a flowing, lively style. Readers will gain a new understanding and appreciation of these men, and may even be inspired to read some of the comprehensive biographies recommended by the author.-Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In this collection,Pulitzer Prize-winner Wood (History/Brown Univ.; The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, 2004, etc.) elegantly examines the meaning of the Founding Fathers for our time and--an infinitely harder thing to discern--for their own. Obsessed with race, class and gender, today's historians are often more intent on dehumanizing rather than simply debunking, the Founders, Wood notes. Without losing sight of the revolutionaries' often significant faults, he offers a welcome, if ironic, reminder of one of their lasting achievements: creating an egalitarian polity that had no place for aristocrats like themselves again.His meditations on the Founders' relationship to the Enlightenment and the creation of American public opinion bracket profiles of six revolutionaries who have entered the American pantheon and two (Thomas Paine and Aaron Burr) who have not. The author typically begins by discussing how different generations viewed a particular figure, then attempting to ferret out the reasons for that revolutionary's conduct. For instance, he shows that Benjamin Franklin's image as folksy self-made American is at odds with the Philadelphian's pre-revolutionary desire to become a gentleman in London. Above all, the Founders adhered to a "classical ideal of disinterested leadership" that fit their notions of character. This ideal suited a meritocracy such as their own, which broke with the English tradition of a corrupt hereditary aristocracy, but it was out of place in a rapidly evolving America that thrust obscure ordinary men into power. Wood explains his figures and their times in fresh ways, noting, for example, how Madison's frustrations in the Virginia legislature inspired him to curb state power at the Constitutional Convention, and why the Democratic-Republican opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 fostered the notion of truth as "the creation of many voices and many minds." Bracing, clear-eyed perspectives on why we are unlikely to see such a politically creative period again. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
