founding fathers book report

Out of the six chapters, I prefer to write about Chapter One and Two: The Duel and The Dinner. This book was very intriguing and helped in the understanding of the post-revolutionary America and the lives of the founding brothers and what they went through.

The founding fathers, or as the book calls them the founding brothers, are an assorted group of men from wildly different backgrounds. In political terms, they were divided. Yet, they came to together to help shape this country into the place it is today. Now on their journey towards the making of this country they did encounter some trouble. They encountered heated debates among themselves though for getting through these debates they show just why they deserve to be called, founding brothers.

In the book, “Revolutionary Characters”, Gordon S. Wood is a history professor at Alva O. Way University and Brown University. Wood was nominated for the National Book Award, but also obtaining the Bancroft and John H. Dunning prizes for his 1969 book “The Creation of the American Republic”. In the other hand, he won the Pulitzer Prize and the Emerson Prize in another book called “The Radicalism of the American Revolution”. This book demonstrates the analysis of six individual founders that lead to the United States successes once again. The prominent historical figures of this book are George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and James Madison. The founder I will discuss in the review is Benjamin Franklin because his great imaginary ideas created into reality as an inventor. The unique way I see and know about this book is the more information on wars and different achievements provided by the author and different interesting facts about each founder.

The Quartet by Joseph Ellis was a novel to provide detail of the years following the American Revolution, and how the Quartet of George Washington, James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton each provided a quality in guiding America toward the right direction. Ellis creates a theme almost as if the reader is on a tour guide, because he explains the perspective on how America was being created between the “Second Revolution” of the years 1783-1789. But, the main goal Ellis wanted to make clear was this time period was the process of how America became a Nation. After finishing the book, Ellis was effective in making the case that the Quartet of Washington, Jay, Hamilton, Madison, as well as other major influences, greatly affected the “transition from confederation to nation.” Each Quartet presented a value in help transitioning America into a Nation, and Ellis provides excellent examples to solidify that claim.

Although Ellis attempts to keep hindsight from skewing the facts about the summer of 1776, he does use his position as a 21st-century historian in order to provide context to the reader. Throughout the book, Ellis occasionally uses his modern-day knowledge to draw attention to certain arguments. For example, in regards to slavery Ellis makes it very clear that what may seem like a minor disagreement between states in 1776 is actually the foundation for a debate that will eventually lead to the Civil War. More generally, Ellis begins the book by saying that “before we begin our trek back to the past, two oddly shaped features of the terrain merit mention, chiefly because they do not align themselves with the expectations we carry in our heads and therefore need to be marked on the map beforehand.” He then goes on to mention the idea of honor in the military, and the lack of unity among states, both of which

The book Founding Brothers - The Revolutionary Generation consists six stories, each of them focuses on a significant creative achievement or failure of seven important men of the early United States. They are George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and Aaron Burr. Joseph Ellis has depicted these founding brothers – or founding fathers - in their efforts to lay the republic’s foundation of the most liberal nation – states in the history of Western Civilization.

Francis D. Cogliano, a senior docent in American History at the University of Edinburgh and

In chapter one, "The Founding Fathers", Schlosser brings to life the post World War 11 era. He talks about the booming economy and the view that anything was possible. He does mention the Ku Klux Klan once throughout this part of the book, but he never mentions the race issues during this time or the presence of Mexican Americans. What was his motivation of bringing up the Ku Klux Klan at this point in the book? And did he use the founding of Taco Bell as an example of the appropriation of Mexico at the time?

The author of this book, Charles W. Aker, was born in Indianapolis, April 2, 1920 to Ira and Mary Bird Akers. He was a US Navy vet and served in World War II in 1942 to 1946. After he fought in WWII he became a history teacher at the Eastern Nazarene College in 1948 then became the Director of Quincy Junior College in 1959. He then taught at Geneva College in Pennsylvania after which he went to Oakland University in 1966 and was appointed as chair of the history department in 1968. As well as being a teacher, he was also a member of many societies like the Colonial Society of Massachusetts and the American Historical Association just to name a few. Charles was a very well established author in his time and died February 1, 2009. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Akers

Joseph J. Ellis, American historian and novelist has written many awards winning novels. One of his most recognized, “American Sphinx”, winner many prestigious awards such as the National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 1997, and the Ambassador Book Award for Biography in 1998. His Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation”, talks about the founding fathers’ interactions with each other in the decades that followed the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

The Founding Brothers tells the tales of the ordinary lives and challenges that the founders or framers of the United States faced. One of the challenges was the common goal to ensure that the nation that the forefathers helped build would stand the test of time. The author, Joseph Ellis, wants the reader to understand better that the founders were more than just men, that were all white and male. Instead, the founders were men that knew the problems that the country was facing after its gaining independence from the British in the American Revolutionary War. They all fought each other tooth and nail over things that they felt were essential for this new republic to survive. Nevertheless, they all met each other to form political compromises that would aid in building the strength and future position of the new republic. These compromises would help settle many disputes that threatened to divide the new nation in half. Even though, they dealt with issues -like slavery, they understood that the entire world was watching and waiting to see what would become of this new government system that.

Throughout Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia, Woody Holton argues that the causes of the Revolutionary War are different than what most people once concluded. Although many American's believe that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are the men who led this revolution, Holton brings up a new theory on how the war began. As Holton's title states, he believes that Indians, debtors, and slaves had a bigger role in the making of the American Revolution. Throughout the entire novel, Holton argues that the American Revolution is not led by the elite men of Virginia, but the nonessential people are those who play the biggest roles in the making of this war.

Founding Brothers The Revolutionary Generation , written and narrated by Joseph J. Ellis, is separated into six chapters and a preface. The six chapters are crucial events in American history, mostly the time surrounding the 1787 Constitutional Convention, which are described using many techniques, such as, quotes and dates. While each section contains one point, as a whole they can be understood to work together. The main purpose of Ellis’ writing was to inform readers of the early stages of government and how it was discussed. Founding Brothers focuses on ideals of the early revolutionary generation leaders and how conflicting their political views were. Ellis describes the personalities of Hamilton, Burr, Adams, Washington, Madison, and Jefferson with great awareness and detail. The results of these influential individuals have molded our country, and their acts of integrity will live on past America’s existence.

The creation of the American nation became what it is today from years of struggle in which the common people, as well as the Founding Fathers, played a vital part for independence. The promise of the Revolution, a nation based on the republican ideals of liberty, independence, and equality, was to some extent achieved. Yet the great principles of the Revolution have long shaped our thoughts of what it means to be an American. All the events leading up and after the American Revolution will have effects on the common people. The story of George Robert Twelves Hewes helps historians comprehend the part that the common people played in their struggle for freedom and republican ideals they wanted to achieve for the generations to come in the new nation.

1 Joseph J. Ellis, “The Duel,” in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, (New York, NY: