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| Product Details |
| In a landmark work of history, the National Book Award—winning author of <b>American Sphinx</b><i> </i>explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed men–Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison–set the course for our nation.<br><br>Joseph Ellis illuminates the profoundly deep bonds and the often fractious, sometimes blind, efforts of the Founding Fathers–re-examined here as Founding Brothers–to realize strikingly different visions of America. During their own time, and even more so in ours, the Founding Fathers were perceived as demigods no more tainted than marble statues by the stain of imperfect humanity. Ellis’s penetrating analysis of six fascinating historical episodes, including Hamilton and Burr’s deadly duel, Washington’s Farewell Address, and the correspondence between Jefferson and Adams, brings these statues to life and their visions into focus. |
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Key Information
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| Awards: |
2000 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, 2000 Pulitzer Prize, 2001 Pulitzer Prize |
| Authors: |
Joseph J. Ellis |
| Nonfiction Subcategory: |
Biography & Autobiography / Political |
| Nonfiction Category: |
Biography & Autobiography |
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Professional Reviews
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Chicago Tribune Books: "Encounters and correspondence shape Ellis' masterful narrative. He returns to the founders' writings to convey their sense of the nation as an unfinished and fragile thing.....By going back to events as they happened, he brings alive the oft-told tales of the early nation.", New York Review of Books: "[A] remarkable set of very engaging stories that can be read independently of one another....[A] wonderful book, one of the best collections of essays on the Founders ever written.", New York Times Book Review: "This is a splendid book--humane, learned, written with flair and radiant with a calm intelligence and wit. Even those familiar with ''the Revolutionary generation'' will, I would warrant, find much in its pages to captivate and enlarge their understanding of our nation's fledgling years.", New York Times: "[A] lively and illuminating, if somewhat arbitrary book that leaves the reader with a visceral sense of a formative era in American life.[Ellis] has written a shrewd, insightful book, less a conventional work of history than a series of strobe-lighted snapshots of a historical era and its illustrious and less-than-illustrious leaders.", Times Literary Supplement: "This kind of episodic history, combined with Ellis's evocative prose and appreciation for historical contingency, has the effect of giving the reader a sense of actually being a witness to the events as they unfold. Ellis recovers the drama, the romance and tragedy, the sense of fragility and imminent danger confronted by the fledgling nation during its turbulent first decade.", Washington Post Book World: "In lesser hands the fractious disputes and hysterical rhetoric of these contentious nation-builders might come across as hyperbolic pettiness. Ellis knows better, and he unpacks the real issues for his readers, revealing the driving assumptions and riveting fears that animated Americans' first encounter with the organized ideologies and interests we call parties." |
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Book Editions
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- Audio - Audio Cassette
- Unabridged
- December 01, 2001
- Recorded Books
- 9780788755156
, - Hardcover
- 288
- October 01, 2000
- Alfred a Knopf Inc
- 9.25"(h) x 6.25"(w) x 1"(d), 1.4 lbs.
- 9780375405440
, - Paperback
- Reprint
- 288
- February 01, 2002
- Vintage Books
- 8"(h) x 5.25"(w) x 0.75"(d), 0.5 lbs.
- 9780375705243
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