|
What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers |  | Author: Richard Brookhiser
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $2.95
as of 7/31/2010 07:59 CDT details
You Save: $13.00 (82%)
New (9) Used (13) from $2.60
Seller: Wowhaus Books
Rating:  19 reviews
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Pages: 261
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 0.8
Dewey Decimal Number: 900
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Why do Americans care so much about the Founding Fathers? After all, the French don't ask themselves, "What would Napoleon do?" But Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Adams built our country, wrote our user's manuals--the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution--and ran the nation while it was still under warranty and could be returned to the manufacturer. If anyone knows how the U.S.A. should work, they did and they still do. Richard Brookhiser has been writing, talking, and thinking about the Founders for years. Now he channels them. What would Hamilton think about free trade? What would Franklin make of the national obsession with values? What would Washington say about gays in the military? Examining a host of issues from terrorism to women's rights to gun control, Brookhiser reveals why we still turn to the Founders in moments of struggle, farce, or disaster--just as Lincoln, FDR, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bill Clinton have done before us. Written with Brookhiser's trademark eloquence--and a good dose of wit--while drawing on his deep knowledge of American history, What Would the Founders Do? sheds new light on the disagreements and debates that have shaped our country from the beginning. Brookhiser challenges us to think and act with the clarity that the Founders brought to the task of making a democratic country. Now, more than ever, we need these creators of America--argumentative, expansive, funny know-it-alls--to help us solve the issues that threaten to divide us.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
 A pleasant surprise September 23, 2009
Jeff Barnaby (Richmond, Virginia)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book came as a gift last Christmas. At first it didn't look like it was going to have much to offer - a short and simple book from yet another writer trying to retroactively impose the views and opinions of the Founders on today's issues and events. But, it was a gift, and so it was thrown onto the "books to read" stack where it figured to be short work before getting relegated to the miscellaneous section of the history shelf on the bookcase. It did not take too many pages to realize that first impressions, in this instance, were quite wrong. This book has a good deal to say and it does so consistently and efficiently from beginning to end. In good, clean form it takes a single idea and looks at it from a different angle in each chapter. The end result is a book that is thorough, to the point, and enjoyable to read.
While the title indicates that this is simply a book about how the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and the rest of the founding bunch would deal with today's issues, there is something more to be had from this book. And that something is an important point which has been frequently lost on recent generations of Americans. It's almost assumed at this point to speak about the American Founders as though they were a unified body in both action and thought. Before considering how "the founders" might deal with our issues, and when considering how they actually dealt with their issues, it needs to be understood, first and foremost, that as a whole they never really agreed all that much with each other about anything, other then the fact they wanted to be rid of English rule - and even with that there was some squabbling.
The reason that this point is one of importance is that when we hear of the Founders today, and we do quite a bit from quite a few, it always seems to be from someone representing a particular interest group (a politician, an educator, a journalist, or some other hack-intellectual) who is speaking to us about the founders as if they were pinning their name onto their lapels suggesting that "the founders" as a whole, would support us. This is almost never the case. And this is a book, whether or not by design, that does a superb job of speaking to that point.
This is a worthwhile read for fans of history, or fans of reading period. And, as it did for me, it will make an excellent gift. Recommended to anybody - 5 stars.
"America is about liberty, or it is about nothing" p.31 May 14, 2008
M. Heiss (USA)
This book is a romp through the personalities of the founders -- really a great book. Brookhiser is familiar with these guys and brings their personalities and styles to life.
It's not a boring old history book (I love boring old history books). It is full of laugh lines and I really enjoyed it.
The founders were such CHARACTERS. This book makes them lively again.
Brookhiser weaves together the personal lives, letters, public pronouncements, and scandals surrounding Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, and Washington (and more!), and he does it topically. Did they always practice what they preached? Indeed, not! But... they were thoughtful, provocative, passionate, and committed.
It is so richly refreshing to read a book with so little political correctness. The founders used none -- they were blunt. And obstinate.
This is a joy of a book. If you just want a little taste of the founders, without reading a boring old history book, then these little 224-pages are for you. If you love the founders and like their style, this is also for you.
The money quote of the book is on page 31. Want to know what the founders would do? "America is about liberty, or it is about nothing."
Be sure to check out the posthumous blogging after page 221. Heh heh heh.
What Would the Founder Do? Our Questions, Their Answers January 10, 2007
Amy Morgan
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Cool book ! This book is for anyone who knows their our orginial early American History and is just curious about what they may have thought. Great to combine older history with a twist ... current issues.
One of the best books ever on the Founding Fathers. January 3, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Richard Brookhiser did a great job of taking modern day issues and correlating them to similar issues from the time of our founding fathers. He then gave historic arguments from the founding fathers as they wrestled with the problems of the day. To often we lump together people from a particular period of time as having the samve views withouth understanding the debate between them. This book showed how different the various founding fathers thought as to how the United States should function. This book belongs in every American home.
WWFD? August 22, 2008
Eric Mayforth (Houston, Texas)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you have spent much time talking about politics or watching others do so on TV, you know that the topic of what the founders of our country would think about a given issue or what they would do about that issue frequently surfaces.
In this volume, Richard Brookhiser explores this topic. An early chapter in his book compares our world to the founders' world. The rest of the book is devoted to what the founders would think about a plethora of issues, including liberty, God, money, war and peace, male-female relations, race, and politics. Brookhiser even explores how the founders would view modern-day issues such as terrorism and WMD.
Of course, "the founders" cannot be viewed as a homogenous group, as some of them had widely varying views (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, for example, had big disagreements on many issues). Thus, on many issues, Brookhiser simply discusses what one or two of the founders would think about a given topic.
The book concludes with an amusing appendix laying out what types of blogs each of the founders might have conducted if they were alive today and not then.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
|
|
|
|
| |
