Bearing Gifts: How The Ancients Inspired Founding Fathers

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different by Gordon S Wood is a non-fiction assortment of essays that analyzes the founding fathers and sheds light on what they may have been thinking as they made the most important decisions for America. He not only writes as a biographer of these important men, describing their success and failures, but also analyzes the character of each revolutionary figure, which in turn humanizes these men who are so dehumanized and rigid in history. His main argument is that the founding fathers did such an amazing job at achieving equality in their society that ordinary people were able to rise to power instead of the highly intellectual, and as a result of that we will never be able to see any replication of them. It is done in a way that can be understood by the average reader. Wood argues that the founding fathers became great men as a result of their situation and the time period that they lived in.

In Interpretations of American History, a collaborative team of four editors (Francis G. Couvares, Martha Saxton, Gerald N. Grob, and George Athan Billias) seek to educate any student of history on the various perspectives on any one said historical issue. The editors sum up the entire book with “These volumes reflect our understanding that history is an act of interpretation. ” Essentially, this book offers a multitude of benefits for those who wish to further study history, but at the same time the reader must take everything said with a grain of salt.

Over the past few weeks of class, we have covered the first five chapters of our textbook, written by George Brown Tindell and David Emory Shi called, “America, A Narrative History.” Each chapter told the reader a narration of the history of America, as opposed to an expository version of America’s history. Each chapter had its own main idea over a portion of history, along with many details that cover the importance of the main idea. As a reader, one may obtain a deeper appreciation for the country 's history, prior to entering the class on the first day. The most important aspect of history, besides the battles that are fought, is the different cultures that make up today’s modern America.

Following the First World War, the United States went in search of a, “return to normalcy,” which many agreed was exactly what it needed. However, to the dismay of many, all the United States could find was a significant amount of tension that had developed between, “Old America,” and, “New America.” All in all, this tension that arose between old and new traditions and ideas did so in the form of religion, conflicts within society, and cultural values.

As old as the stories of the Greeks and Romans were, the founding fathers found a way to connect what they learned as they grew up to the decisions they made during their time as statesmen. In the book Greeks & Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding Fathers by Carl J. Richard, it is shown how some of the historical event such as the Persian wars, the stories of the Spartans etc…. influenced our founding fathers decisions for our nation. From the stories of the Spartans they learned the importance of independence to a republic. Persian Wars taught the founding fathers to inherit the strengths of a republican government that helped to defend itself against strong governments. From the fall of Greece to Macedon and Rome

In Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis discusses how the relationships of the founding fathers shaped the United States, looking not only at what happened historically but the myths that have prevailed in modern times. I have few issues with this book one of which is that the narrative often jumps from one time and place to another, and while it provides the relevant information and keeps the reader’s attention, it can be hard to follow at times. In addition there are times were he explains the same incident more than once, which is distracting and unnecessary. Despite this Ellis supports his thesis well through stories of political and personal events between the founders, and clearly shows how it affected their treatment of each other.

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different Scholarly Review Gordon S. Wood, the author of the story, “Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different”, retells the lives of many influential men, through series of essays, who will forever leave their mark on the evolution of American government. These men helped create an egalitarian government, which gave voice to the people, an idea very uncommon at this time. Thus, the citizen’s opinions of people in power changed, and there would no longer be a group of self-made elite leaders ever again. Instead, a group of government leaders was created to be equal to the citizens. He uses these men, and their stories to support the thesis that the founders were a unique generation of men and women that can never be replicated.

The first video “The Constitution Project” – creating a constitution of the founding fathers creating and signing the constitution. This is a large piece of history which because of them, the constitution and the articles of confederation are what make makes America what it is today, unified. The major learning theme of this video is to understanding what and how these states came together, taxation, laws, and the people behind it. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison to name a few are the unique founding fathers who helped make America the way it is for years to come. Because of the constitution, constitutional conflicts have become a major focus and resolving them is another. Most of all, it’s significant to see the founding fathers go through conflicts of the constitution and eventually come to a compromise that are doable still today. It’s extraordinary to see first-hand of a group of leaders eventually reach a compromise about its core values, the government, states, and people’s rights.

The historical non-fiction novel by Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers, takes place following the 1787 Constitutional Convention in America, and focuses on important events that the Founding Father’s encounter. The author talks about how our Founding Fathers had changed the time period in which they lived, and how it changed them. The preface of the story helps the reader decipher historical context for the rest of the book. Ellis makes it a point to mention the American Revolution’s significance and success. After America’s liberation from Great Britain, no one expected America to make it very far. They expected them to either crash and burn or come crawling back to them. So, the founding fathers were determined to make America successful

In the first few pages of this chapter, I thought it was interesting that Ellis really goes into detail about hindsight and far sight saying that because of hindsight, many of the founders could only see the goal of being independent. However there were some that saw the plentiful amount of resources and the potential America had to form a government. But all of the Founding Fathers were not sure that they would win the war. Then after, when they were gathered to expand the Articles of Confederation, there were people who wanted power to be kept at a local level and there were those who thought federalism was better and wanted to make a larger and more

According to Scott (2008), the Constitution of America has undergone several translations within the history of America because they found it to be unclear. Whereas it appears discrepant that the unclear Constitution could be useful, the disagreement is the case (Robertson, 2005). Americans regard the Constitution to be helpful for the reason that it allows for diverseness of views. In the history of America, a variety of thoughts would develop with alarming and formidable support through various factions (Robertson, 2005). Today, the main political arguments are presented from the Republican group or Democratic group. During the early periods of the American government, arguments on politics were made by Thomas Jefferson

Roman society was one of ever changing complexity. At a size of approximately one million people Rome was the pinnacle of an age long lost. Yet the society created by these ancient people remains in the ever changing culture of today. Whether it be the creation of a republic, the political entity still used by many today, to the mannerisms of war still taught by military schools the world over, Rome gave more to the development of civilization than almost any society. Even the phrase, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is commonly used around the world. In this essay Roman society will be analyzed from the rise to the fall of the great and vast republic and empire. Yet what was a Roman really? “The Romans thus created for themselves a “national self-image” or a “national character,” and they perceived of the ideal Roman as being stern, diligent, and self-sufficient.” Although this may be an image that many Romans accepted as their societies view of its subjects, there was much more to the Romans than that. As with any other society there were the rich and poor, as well as slaves. Looking back the Romans may seem to be a very militaristic society, but the every day life of a Roman was equally exciting. To discover the truth behind these ancient people’s lives one must however know the difference between fact and fiction, as many of the Romans writings were not entirely true, but instead full of myth. This essay will look at the politics, military, myth, and true everyday

Sellers, in his book, American Republicanism, delves into the topic of justice in Ancient Roman politics. He discusses the interpretations of justice that are described by famous politician and historian, Cicero and Livy. Sellers then draws similarities between Cicero and Livy’s interpretations with the interpretations of men who were important in the finding of the United States, such as James Madison or John Adams. John Adams was an advocate for justice in the founding of the United States and believed Cicero’s conclusion should represent how justice is defined in the United States, “there could be

In conclusion Politics in ancient times become quite prevalent in the modern day era. The US should give a lot of credit to the work the Romans did because they used it to shape their government. The freedom of