Founding Brothers
by Joseph J. Ellis · first published 2000
3mentions
1recommended by
3HN commenters
2018–2022first – last mentioned
33% recommend67% neutral
In this landmark work of history, the National Book Award--winning author of American Sphinx explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals--Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison--confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation.The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade that followed, the Founding Fathers--re-examined here as Founding Brothers--combined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the content of the Constitution to create the practical workings
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His Excellency, by Joseph J. Ellis, is very good. I strongly recommend it. Founding Brothers, by Ellis, is also very good (and short). David McCullough has several tremendous US history books, including John Adams, 1776, The Wright Brothers, The Path Between the Seas.
on “George Washington’s “Yelp Reviews”” ↗Joseph J. Ellis, in his book "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation", makes the case that it wasn't till the 1810s and 1820s that Americans began to argue about the origins of the country, and increasingly settle upon July 4th, 1776, as the…
on “It took a decade for the Declaration of Independence to matter in American life” ↗…afraid that letting the US fall apart would deal a blow to democracy everywhere. Lincoln so eloquently voices this concern in the Gettysburg Address. Historian Joseph Ellis said (I think in his book "Founding Brothers") that we now take democracy as the inevitable conclusion of liberalizing politics but that formed only after the US Civil War. (This also doesn't address the moral horror of allowing slavery to continue…
on “Coming to grips with the American Civil War” ↗