American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic
by Joseph J. Ellis
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joseph J. EllisEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2007-10-30
ISBN: 030726369X
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Product features:
- American History
Book Reviews of American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic
Book Review: The Continuing American Revolution
Summary: 5 Stars
Together with the Civil War, the American Revolution continues to exert a great fascination for Americans. The historian Joseph Ellis has written many books making this period of our history accessible to lay readers. His most recent work "American Creation" is, in its scholarship and its lucidity, a thoughtful study of the founding of our nation.
The founding of the United States, for Ellis, occured in the 28-year period from 1775, with the shots fired at Lexington and Concord, and continued through the Louisiana purchase of 1803. But in a deeper sense, the process set in motion in these years continues to this day as Americans struggle and debate among themselves to understand, realize, and develop the government bequeathed by the Founders. Ellis argues that the American Revolution was unique in that it was a conservative, evolutionary process that resulted from a fortuitous combination of time, the Enlightenment era, and space, the large, apparently inexhaustible land mass of North America located far from the European powers. The evolutionary character of the Revolution, for Ellis, was the source of its stability and accomplishments, but it was also the source of its severe shortcomings in the perpetuation of slavery and in the treatment of Native Americans.
Ellis rejects the extremes in which the American Revolution has all-too-often been viewed. On one hand, he rejects viewing the Founders as iconic, larger-than-life figures somehow without the passions, weaknesses and blindnesses of ordinary mortals. On the other hand, Ellis also rejects a post-modernistic, highly critical assessment of the Founders which sees them as dead white males bound to their elite economic class and caring nothing for the rights of slaves, Indians, or women. For Ellis, the Revolution was the fortunate result of coincidence, opportunity, and genuine talent. The Founders, in their evolutionary approach to Revolution, improvised and temporized. They were remarkably successful, but at a price.
Ellis offers a narrative, story-like account of the American Revolution, a form that has been much-criticized by academic historians adopting an interest-based approach to historical writing. The four individuals Ellis considers to be most instrumental in bringing about the American Revolution are George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. He portrays these characters well throughout his narrative, with attention to their virtues, shortcomings, and idiosyncracies.
Ellis develops his theme through six chapters, each of which is short enought to be readable and detailed enough to avoid superficiality. The thread of the narrative -- the evolutionary nature of the American Revolution -- is sustained through each chapter with attention to the uniqueness of the individual historical events he describes.
Ellis discusses the beginnings of the war for independence which culminated in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence in 1776. He gives great weight to the writings of John Adams as well as to the famous "self-evident" truths Jefferson proclaimed which ultimately became the basis of the American vision. In the second chapter, Ellis describes the winter at Valley Forge and how it helped create both a military strategy and the basis of a nation. Ellis describes the Constitutional Convention and the ambiguities created in our founding document, with special attention to the role of James Madison and to Madison's debates with Patrick Henry in the Ratification Convention in Virginia. Chapter four considers early attempts during the Washington Administration to devise a humane Indian policy. Ellis reflects on how the structure of Federalism established by the Constitution helped to cause these attempts to fail. In chapter 5, Ellis discusses the beginnings of the two-party system in Jefferson's criticisms of Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists. Jefferson is roughly treated in Ellis's account. The final chapter describes Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which rested uneasily with Jefferson's own professed principles of limited government. This purchase was a climactic event, doubling the size of the United States, and irrevocably establishing the power of the national government. But it also laid the basis for the extension of slavery and for the Civil War.
In the opening chapter of this book, Ellis summarizes the accomplishments of the Revolutionary generation as including 1. a successful war for independence; 2. establishing a nation-size republic; 3.creating a secular state; 4. creating a government with divided sovereignties 5. creating political parties and providing a forum for organized dissent. The ambiguities and compromises of the Founders created a system that is fluid by its nature and that continues to be developed and argued about by subsequent generations.
Without minimizing the tragedies of the Revolutionary generation, Ellis explains well the origins of the American system of government and why it has been able to survive and develop. Ellis has written an excellent book which will help its readers understand their past and think creatively about their future.
Robin Friedman
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Summary of American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic
From the prizewinning author of the best-selling Founding Brothers and American Sphinx, a masterly and highly ironic examination of the founding years of our country. The last quarter of the eighteenth century remains the most politically creative era in American history, when a dedicated and determined group of men undertook a bold experiment in political ideals. It was a time of triumphs; yet, as Joseph J. Ellis makes clear, it was also a time of tragedies?all of which contributed to the shaping of our burgeoning nation.From the first shots fired at Lexington to the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, Ellis guides us through the decisive issues of the nation?s founding, and illuminates the emerging philosophies, shifting alliances, and personal and political foibles of our now iconic leaders?Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Adams. He casts an incisive eye on the founders? achievements, arguing that the American Revolution was, paradoxically, an evolution?and that part of what made it so extraordinary was the gradual pace at which it occurred. He shows us why the fact that it was brought about by a group, rather than by a single individual, distinguished it from the bloodier revolutions of other countries, and ultimately played a key role in determining its success. He explains how the idea of a strong federal government, championed by Washington, was eventually embraced by the American people, the majority of whom had to be won over, as they feared an absolute power reminiscent of the British Empire. And he details the emergence of the two-party system?then a political novelty?which today stands as the founders? most enduring legacy.
But Ellis is equally incisive about their failures, and he makes clear how their inability to abolish slavery and to reach a just settlement with the Native Americans has played an equally important role in shaping our national character. He demonstrates how these misjudgments, now so abundantly evident, were not necessarily inevitable. We learn of the negotiations between Henry Knox and Alexander McGillivray, the most talented Indian statesman of his time, which began in good faith and ended in disaster. And we come to understand how a political solution to slavery required the kind of robust federal power that the Jeffersonians viewed as a betrayal of their most deeply held principles.
With eloquence and insight, Ellis strips the mythic veneer of the revolutionary generation to reveal men both human and inspired, possessed of both brilliance and blindness. American Creation is a book that delineates an era of flawed greatness, at a time when understanding our origins is more important than ever.
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