American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic

American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic | Joseph J. Ellis | Endless list of historical facts are never allowed to overwhelm Joseph Ellis's analysis and explanation

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American Creation:...

	American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic Joseph J. Ellis Knopf, 2007 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 57 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Most people don't understand history............

....but Joe Ellis can go a long way toward correcting that. I was lucky; I was raised by parents who respected history, by a Dad who learned about the Civil War first hand, from his grandfather. Much of history is written WAY beyond the "normal" reader...check my reviews...some of those books get five stars, but with caveats. Joe Ellis writes history [all of it about the Revolutionary period], that is short enough not to be a burden, long enough not to be silly, deep enough that a history professor can learn from it, and understandable to any intelligent person. As in "Founding Brothers", Joe has not tried to be comprehensive...he has given us a series of "snapshots" of our early years, broken up into topical chapters. Joe even gets humor into the preface: during his book tour for "Founding Brothers", folks would ask him why the earlier generation got to choose between Adams and Jefferson, and our choices were Bush and Algore. He would courteously tell them that they had obviously not studied the campaign of 1800. AMEN...it was a disgrace. The various topics looked at were:

[1] "The Year"...1775...when the need for, and possibility of, independence, became apparent to a "critical mass" of influential people. Ellis makes the excellent point that America was never a one man show. Yes, Washington was central, but Adams, Jefferson, and Madison were almost equally central, and there was quite a supporting cast. Other countries...France, Russia, Cuba...have had revolutions dominated by one man, then gone to hell. We have survived, partialy because our nation was never wholly personified in one person.

[2] "The Winter"...at Valley Forge. We almost lost everything right there. Washington held it together by force of will, despite the Conway Cabal, despite disloyal local farmers, despite everything. But, with a big assist from Baron von Steuben.

[3] "The Argument"...over ratification of the Constitution. OK...we won...what do we do now? By 1887, it was apparent that the Articles of Confederation weren't working. A Constitutional Convention, chaired by Washington, was held in Philadelphia [in secret]. Madison, and others produced a federal compact, then sent it to the states. There, the REAL story was written; the Virginia debates, with Madison and Marshall on one side, and Patrick Henry [with help] on the other are the stuff of legend. Ratification won [barely], but Henry and George Mason were able to force a Bill of Rights into the picture. {Later, Henry became a big federalizer, and Madison went the other way, but that's another tale}.

[4] "The Treaty"...with the Creek Indians in 1790. The Indians went to New York, with much pomp, negotiated with Washington, Henry Knox, and Jefferson, and signed the "Treaty of New York". The Indians got the shaft. What else is new? Well, Joe is good enough to make the point that they brought much of it on themselves, and in the process introduces us to the book's closest approach to comic relief, Creek Chief Alexander McGillivray. [OK, Citizen Genet has comic aspects, too]. The Chief was a drunken, double-dealing, genius. Both sides violated the treaty before the ink was dry, and McGillivray got rich....

[5] "The Conspiracy"...by Jefferson and Madison that gave us our modern two-party system. The two founders took a trip to New England in 1791, and politics has never been the same. Till then, "parties" were seen as dishonorable. BUT, except for a minor spot of trouble between 1861 and 1865, we've managed to settle our differences peacefully. This MAY represent Jefferson's greatest gift to us.

[6] "The Purchase"....of Louisiana...Thomas Jefferson took office pledging to shrink the government, and save money. Instead, he gave us an "Empire of Liberty". The purchase [probably] violated the Constitution, but Jefferson played his cards to perfection, and grabbed a once-in-a-millenium opportunity. Of course, there was the minor problem of slavery, and the non-Republican administration of the new territory, but, hey......

Once again, Joe Ellis has given us an absolutely fabulous book. Buy it; more important, study it. We have a great country, and far too few understand how it got that way.

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Endless list of historical facts are never allowed to overwhelm Joseph Ellis's analysis and explanation

A clear explanation of the complex connections between The War of Independence, the Constitutional Convention, slavery, racism, The National Bank, development of party politics, the Louisiana Purchase, the real interests and motivations of the various founding fathers -- and how the Infant Republic's "evolutionary revolution" responded to all these challenges coming at it from all directions. Many mistakes were made but it survived and thrived

Outstanding

On the heals of Founding Brothers by Mr. Ellis I was very much interested in American Creation. An excellent book with an admirable balance of historical fact, interpertation where appropriate and "I can't say" again, where appropriate.

Significant part of the book read like a novel. Beautifully written and admirably researched.

Dennis Landry
Fairfax Va.

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Very solid

This book was written in the same format as the amazing "Founding Brothers," and while it is another excellent effort from Ellis, it's not quite at that same level. Not that many books are.

Ellis takes some stories/events that led to the creation of the republic and describes them well, pointing out positives and negatives of each. It's more analytical than "Founding Brothers." After the first two chapters, this book really picks up and offers an awful lot of good information in a quick-reading style that Ellis is known for.

He pins a significant amount of blame on Jefferson for not stopping the spread of slavery after the Louisiana Purchase, and while I see his point, I don't completely agree. The one thing I wish this book had was an additional chapter on the War of 1812. He stops the book after the Purchase and indicates that it was the final major event en route to the American creation. I believe that until the War of 1812 was resolved, the republic was not really secure, and since it was a founder who oversaw that war, it would have been the ideal place to conclude the book. Regardless, I enjoyed it very much.

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Very Insightful

Anybody who has read Joseph Ellis before knows how much research and analysis is put into his work. This book is no exception. A collection of narratives regarding a few of the most important episodes of our founding years, which includes a brief review of the war and the winter at Valley Forge, the debate over the Constitution, the creation of political parties, post war Indian affairs and the LA purchase. This was a good read, but I found his scholarly tone to sometimes be somewhat less 'accessible' unlike David McCullough which reads like a novel. I still enjoyed it and recommend this book to anybody and everybody interested in this generation of Americans and period of our history.

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