...In the beginning of the book called Founding Brothers, the author, Joseph J. Ellis, tells his purpose to research how the relationships of the main people in the Revolutionary generation changed the development of American history. The author asks the reader to see the stories from both foresight and hindsight, implying that the stories should be understood both in terms of how they occurred, and in terms of what was later revealed over the years. He has chosen to focus the structure of the book around the important members of the Revolutionary generation, including Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Hamilton. The founding fathers realized that the new nation had great potential. George Washington was a great example because he thought the expansion into the West would help a civilized future. On page 7, George...
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...Founding Brothers Through a sequence of six important events in United States history, the author goes into depth on the challenges faced by our Founding Fathers as they created the new government of the United States after the Revolutionary War. He focuses his writings around the most important members of the Revolutionary era, the Founding Fathers. They are: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Aaron Burr, John Adams, and Abigail Adams. Ellis’s quest is to examine each one’s personality to discover the historical truth. This book is divided into six sections and an additional preface, each of which focuses on an event or issue during the Revolutionary Era, which occurred from 1764 to 1789. Ellis attempts to examine the time from both foresight and hindsight. He attempts to impart the improved perspective afforded by centuries of hindsight. His goal is to rediscover our Founding Fathers, and the length to which they formed or were formed by the rough period in which they lived and acquired their historical reputations....
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...Brothers to each other and Fathers to the nation, James Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison led the United States to independence over a series of revolutionary events. Joseph Ellis’s Founding Brothers successfully brings to life the issues and personalities of this period in time and is able to characterize these figures beyond their distinguished names, but as characters in a dramatic and remarkable history. Ellis succinctly analyzes six major events in the late 18th century: the Burr-Hamilton duel, the Compromise of 1790, the issue of slavery, Washington’s Farewell Address, the Adams Administration, and the friendship between Adams and Madison. He is able to vividly...
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...Founding Brothers is a Pulitzer Prize winning, historical non-fiction book written by Joseph J. Ellis which focuses on not only the impact of the nation's founding fathers, but the difference between what today's generation sees and what actually happened. He focused on people from the Revolutionary generation including Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, and others. Ellis wrote this book in order to give his audience a new perspective on the Founding Fathers and how their specific lives, relationships, and decisions impacted today's nation. Joseph J. Ellis was born on July 18, 1943 in Washington D.C. He earned his Master of Arts and PhD from Yale University and began his career as a professor. Ellis has since then...
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...The Founding Brothers is a book composed of different chapters fixated on events that occurred in America after the revolution. Within these chapter Ellis hits key topics throughout the story about the different Founding Fathers, such as their lives when they lived through the time period of the 1790s and the personal interactions between the Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton. Ellis has a way of presenting the information to the readers to easily understand and to comprehend the style of his writing helps you understand more in depth of the context. Although Ellis has a way of easily understanding his form of writing he finds various ways to involve you in the argument he presents to us and the diverse opinions from others that are being debated over....
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...In the novel,”Founding Brothers” author Joseph Ellis illustrates the Revolutionary era by providing insights of the Founding Fathers. Ellis also distinguishes the behind scenes look during the revolutionary period as he comes across the explanation of how America successfully achieved their independence from Great Britain, declaration of Independence, and established the United States Constitution. Ellis takes the reader back into American history to view how these founding fathers (Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison) contributed to the American Revolution.Alexander Hamilton “was [the] secretary of treasury”(48). He was described as an ambitious man, he had developed a financial plan to pay off the state debts. Part of his plan was to collaborate a National Bank. He wanted Congress to charter this bank that would provide stability to America's economy by establishing loans to merchants, handling government funds, and issuing...
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...Founding Brothers Introduction When I first heard the name of Ellis’ Book “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation”, I could not understand why the author called the revolutionary generation “brothers”, but not “fathers” as usual. Now, after I have read the book, I understand why. Ellis did not write the history of the United States, he wrote the story of a group of men, whose remarkable personal qualities made possible the emergence of a new independent country. Although, the members of the group were different in their personalities, backgrounds and experiences, it seems like all of them shared a superhuman gene of the ability to change the history. Since Founding Father’s agendas on the political course of the U.S. had differed drastically, they were not friends and, often, even allies. However, the devotion to the U.S. independency was literary in their blood, so it made them...
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...The Founding Brothers tells the tales of the ordinary lives and challenges that the Founders or Framers faced. One of them was to ensure that the nation that they helped build would stand for the test of time. However, the author, Joseph Ellis, tries to give the reader a better understanding of the founders, that they are more than just men. They are more than white people that believed in white superiority. Instead, they are men that understood the problems that the country was facing after independence from the United Kingdom by a war. They fought each other tooth and nail over things that they believed needed to be done for the country or else this new republic will fall, like the Roman Republic. Nevertheless, they met each other to form political compromises that would build the strength and position of the new republic. Theses Compromises help settle many disputes that had threated to divide the new nation in half. Even though, it deals with issues that at the time should not be spoken, like slavery. They understood that the world was watching them and was waiting for what...
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...Founding Brothers Essay The preface of the book describes Ellis' intention of writing this book. He starts with stating that during this modern time, we often take for granted our freedom. Through the prologue, Ellis describes the difficulty the founding fathers face. He says that one punishment that these fathers would face is execution due to treason. Despite this, these men had managed to work together to create a nation that is one of the superpowers in todays world. Joseph also reminds us that these people all had different within creating this nation. We are reminded to know that these fathers are human and failure was a price for them to pay. In chapter 1, a duel occurred between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Burr won the duel, while Hamilton dies. When Burr and Hamilton dueled, they were considered to be political rivals with vicious feelings towards each other. Ellis believes that these two had the duel to boost public...
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...Kelsey Wible Mr. Stoner APUSH August 19 2014 Founding Brothers "Founding Brothers" by Joseph Ellis is a non-fiction book that analyzes several important events in America among the nation's founding fathers, that take place after the Revolutionary War. The author goes into detail chronologically describing how these events shaped the history of the United States. Joseph Ellis is an American historian and professor. He specializes in American history, and more specifically the founding fathers of America. Ellis has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He has written several biographies about the founders of America, including Adams, Jefferson and Washington. His book about Jefferson titled, "American Sphinx: The...
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...Founding Brothers Vs. Hamilton The Musical Many years ago the Founding Fathers worked to make a strong independant country. Now the legacy of their hardships is forever carved into our history, through not only books but now through a musical as well. A theme in the book Founding Brother by Joseph J. Ellis is posterity. Throughout the book Ellis tries to understand what these men hoped posterity would say about them. I find that the musical Hamilton reflects the posterity of the Founding Fathers in modern day through the eyes of the modern day creators. I will highlight how both of these Pulitzer Prize winners are similar in theme however present in different but effective ways. Ellis illustrates beautifully how he tried to think through...
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...In Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Joseph J. Ellis, in depth, explains some of the defining challenges that the Founding Fathers faced after they began to build the new government of the United Sates after the Revolutionary War. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation is a work of historical non-fiction written in narrative form. Ellis chooses to write his narrative based on the most predominant figures of the time period, which he names “Founding Brothers,” a relative twist from the more commonly known “Founding Fathers. Ellis splits the book into seven sections, where he tries to focus on either an event or an issue that occurred during the Revolutionary Era of the United States. The target of Ellis’s book is to...
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...Nonfiction Book Review Assignment I. Identification of Work For my Nonfiction Book Review Assignment, I read the novel Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by author Joseph J. Ellis. Ellis is a leading historian who was educated at the College of William and Mary and at Yale University and who has taught at Williams College, the University of Massachusetts, Mount Holyoke College, and the United States Military Academy at West Point. II. Summary of the Main Ideas Although Ellis expresses many significant points, it is clear that, above all else, Ellis believes the framing of our government was made possible because of the distinctive personalities of the revolutionary generation and their varying viewpoints on the future of our...
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...Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. by Joseph J. Ellis. In Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis, the “Brothers” in the titles are Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Although there are controversies about Joseph Ellis leaving out the “sister” that also has an important role in the revolutionary, Abigail Adams. Reading this book, I learned a lot about America’s founding fathers of whom I never knew about. Such as the politicals learnings and how our nation ran. The book itself is sectioned off like episodes of a T.V show: a duel between Hamilton and Burr; a dinner consisting of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison that...
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...Joseph J. Ellis, the author of the historical novel “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation”, is an American historian, novelist, and professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Ellis was born on July 18, 1943 in Washington, D.C. and is still alive today, living with his wife in Amherst, Massachusetts and is the father of three adult sons. As for his career, he has had some impressive accomplishments in his lifetime and some not so pleasant scandals. Ellis earned his Bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary in 1965. He went on to receive many higher educational degrees from the prestigious Yale University such as the following: a Master of Arts, a Master of Philosophy,...
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