Founding Brothers Of The Revolutionary Generation English Literature Essay

Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis was quite remarkable for its complexity and deep understanding during the revolutionary generation. It brought us to a more deep perspective from a specific point of view that many other people, including me, had never thought existed. The fundamentals of the book were intriguing towards our young minds in today’s era. And it has definitely showed us deep meaning on what really happened during this generation. Ellis’s writing projects the founder’s voices as they were real. His knowledge in the republican era shows us the actions they took in our early American history. America did indeed survive the Revolutionary War and their abundance of produce, land, and isolation. Forming the national government was a big holdback because of the previous national government that majorly failed with its many flaws. The different views on how America should be run will be from the top Political leaders: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Aaron Burr, Abigail Adams, and Benjamin Franklin.

Ellis was rather straightforward with his knowledge in our political history. He wrote with elegance and told the readers, like me, on what to expect from the early republicans. His view on this shows us the doorway to their minds like Jefferson, and Hamilton as if it was happening today. Ellis tends to comprehend all of the materials and stretches the conversation into a more elaborate way. He is lucid on the fact the Jefferson and Hamilton had their views on a new identity of America. He is quite biased with the fact that I could tell he was more fond of Hamilton or Adams.

Ellis describes some of the top leaders of the generation as “not fit for the job” or “the greatest man” with supportive facts but not the actual view for some of us. The detail that Ellis goes through is their faults. Portraying the fact that some of them he listed like Jefferson were credited through his failures more than his successions. Some of the individual faults he mentioned rather surprised me like George Washington as he mentioned that he was “more of an actor than to be president”. However, there was a more positive way Ellis took with Washington such as that “He was the sole reason we are still here today”. With his strong leadership, in my opinion, he has definitely made an impression on our grounds.

The view on Thomas Jefferson was quite interesting as he views him as conniving and a borderline psychotic person. The conclusion that he leads is evidential in many ways. “We can be reasonably sure that Abigail was speaking for her husband as well as herself. This statement Ellis made shows that “Adams Team” was convicting Thomas with two grave offenses.

“Although Jefferson probably presumed that Abigail was sharing their correspondence with her husband, Adams himself never saw the letters until several months later”. Ellis contradicts himself saying this when he specifically stating something else earlier.

Thomas Jefferson invited Hamilton and Madison to dinner to compromise over 2 major issues. Where to place the capital and how they will settle the states debts. The dinner was quite remarkable with their preparations to organize a finalized plan for the country’s capital. Originally planed for Virginia it will not only help the state itself but it would increase public awareness. It is kind if odd that they would confirm something this big during a dinner, but it does show that they had the mere intention to get the job done no matter where it was. All three knew that the capital would be a very serious decision was currently located in New York. But they argued over it and finally made the decision. Not only for the politicians that it mattered to, but for the public as well.

I have not read many historical novels in my life, but I have had a brief knowledge on why authors do it. Authors like Ellis have a unique way of showing you the deepness of the truth behind the dark doors. Different ones show different point of views which is perfectly fine. As long as they are supported with believable facts, then it will make the truth just that more interesting for us readers. The truth is the things I like to hear especially in our early American history. Ellis delivers the views at unimaginable detail which shows us a good portion of the revolutionary generation. I am sure that other authors have the same type of intentions to tell the story from their knowledge to their writing.

Other authors tend to tell and describe more than visualize it for us in descriptive structures of words. Ellis I think visualizes the situations more than just tell. It may bore some readers, which it usually does, than entertain the readers to a more deep understanding. He gives us a much broader view of comprehensible materials to absorb into our young and old minds. Ellis gives us the republicans side as to the federalists side as people are more exposed to.

Founding Brothers was definitely a difficult read for even the most experienced readers. It was packed with huge amounts of information page after page which is good for the people that like descriptive yet visual books. I personally think it was about the same as if it was a giant book. It gave me the truth, or as I think it is, of how our early American history came to what it is today. Ellis could have gone more in depth of why some of these people made their decisions. It didn’t have to be an exact interpretation as that would be nearly impossible. But he could have gave as a good educated professional guess as of what lead them to make those life changing decisions.

I guess in the ways Ellis described things would be easily comprehensible for professors or a very high leveled reader. But the tool of using examples from the past or present could have helped the readers understand the book a little bit more, rather then just babbling on one subject for pages. Another way that could have helped me understand why things happened would be using conclusive ideas from his colleague’s or, historians to support the fact of why something happened. From just a one point view, it would be just like reading an autobiography, which I am sure is not very demanding these days. Anyways, these are just some of the things that he could have done to improve not only mine, but other readers as well to have a better understanding in Jefferson’s, Madison’s, Hamilton’s, Washington’s, etc decisions.

Reading this book has definitely changed some personal views of revolutionary times. It has taught me a good deep understanding in our historical time period like the Farewell address and the states capital placement. Some doubtful points that might need to be more cleared up on would be like why did Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams sit at the same table when we clearly know that they were not very fond of each others ideas. I mean, I understand that it could have been easier to see others opinions, but not exactly sure how it would have worked in this era. Also, how did the political leaders react to the aftermath of the Revolution? What made states go into major debt in minimal time? I know that this is not the only book with this specific point of view or this interpretation of what these leaders did. I will continue my search in finding the most historically accurate book as I am quite interested in why things happened the way that they happened.

There were definitely noticeable gaps in both chronologically and lucid interpretation of our founding fathers. It doesn’t quite bother me as much as our text book though which is an improvement at many levels. However, it does not lower my understanding of the historical facts and to the fact that it was extremely information from the start to the end. Ellis has giving us a remarkable view of the American Generation and a somewhat compact novel. So overall, it did not leave any noticeable questions on me for this matter and to the understanding of the historical accurate information.

In conclusion, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis, was a good read if you want to know the aftermath of the Revolutionary War and how the political leaders like Jefferson and Hamilton took things to their own hands. It has given us an extraordinary experience through the time in history and it sets us in the shoes of the others. Our young baffled minds comprehend to Ellis’s views and his views towards mostly Jefferson. Faults for this particular novel have been down to the bare minimum. I know that everything cannot be one-hundred percent accurate, but they could be really darn close. Ellis has made a good first impression to the people that have read his novels like this one. He has truly captured the meaning of views that people overuse like today in our society. He gives us the opposite view of what we thought to have only one side. The importance of this book will be a rated scale of a solid 8 from a 1-10 in my opinion. It may be a hard read, but never underestimate the knowledge of our authors. Ellis has surely showed us a great in depth experience behind the works of the republicans for the most part. It is an interesting read and it has changed my mind just a little on how things had been described for years, till now.