It takes a topical approach to linking the ideas of the past—specifically, the ideas of America’s Founding Fathers—with the present, creating an “American Dialogue” that will ceaselessly be renewed as America’s future becomes its past anew.
As an added bonus, Ellis provides an “ongoing conversation between past and present”. One chapter is a "founders" story and the next is an analysis of our present dilemmas. The issues are complex and the founders could never have seen how we would have evolved (although a few had some pretty good ideas about where we would go). Adams knew that even if men are born with equal rights, they don’t have equal power, faculties, and influence.Added to this inconvenient truth is Adams’ assessment that man’s passions will often prevail over his reason, and the dominant human drive is to be noticed and loved, which usually comes more readily to the wealthy and famous. I had encountered the role of John Jay in setting the post-Revolutionary borders of the now-independent colonies for the Treaty of Paris, but it always good to have this repeated. Joseph Ellis has long mined early American history and the lives of the Founding Fathers for a string of acclaimed books, from an award-winning biography of Thomas Jefferson to well-drawn portraits of John and Abigail Adams, George Washington, John Jay, James Madison and … He divides the book into four parts—one focusing on each—then divides each part into two sections, “then” and “now.”In each “then” section, he chooses a Founder who best embodied the struggle with that topic. Start by marking “American Dialogue: The Founders and Us” as Want to Read: Unfortunately, while the essays on the founders … "American Dialogue" is a nice addition to that catalog, even if it falls a bit short of his best. Start with John Adams, who would not be surprised by it given his advanced understanding of human nature. If we want to have a proper dialogue with the past, and abide by the intentions and spirit of the founders, we must understand them in all of their complexity, and not as caricatures of our own narrow political agendas. In a nutshell, "American Dialogue" looks at several of the Founding Fathers, including John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and many of their landmark writings, decisions, policies, etc. As always, Ellis writes clearly and persuasively.
If you're not well versed in the Founders or the Constitution, or if you're looking to give Ellis a try for the first time, I do not think you'll appreciate this latest endeavor.An well researched and reasoned history concentrating on four of America’s founders, Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Washington. That’s too bad, because his discussions about the Founders are fascinating and illuminating.Whether you agree or not with his political observations, they are grounded in historical context, well reasoned, and illustrated with specific examples, which make them worth listening to and perhaps even learning from even if not agreeing with. Thus, from Ellis’ vantage point, any attempt to derive a clear, steadfast perspective on the Founders’ intent is folly.For his final still-simmering issue over which reasonable minds have differed for two-and-a-half centuries, Ellis looks to George Washington and his thoughts on foreign policy — most notably, to “avoid foreign entanglements” — which historians have determined “charted the course of American foreign policy for the next century and beyond.”Washington’s clear vision of America’s proper place in the world certainly conflicts with American foreign policy in the 21st century, which Ellis sees as “adrift, lacking the moral and strategic compass that guided it through the Cold War,” such that our leaders have now “begun to question the nation’s role as chief defender of the world’s order.”While the author describes President Trump as a “charismatic charlatan with a knack for exploiting fears,” Trump’s attempt to pull America back from the world nonetheless aligns with Ellis’ observation that:“All empires, like all mortals, must come and go, and the chief reason for their demise is that the world is an inherently unmanageable place that eventually devours the strength of any and all superpowers that history selects for what is, in effect, an impossible mission.”Focusing on what our first presidents said and did provides a much-needed breathing exercise for today’s politically overwhelmed reader, which should cause most to accept Joseph Ellis’ ultimate conclusion that, “as a lovely song once put it, the fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”Support the Independent by purchasing this title via our affliate links: American Dialogue: The Founders and Us Paperback – November 26, 2019 by Joseph J. Ellis (Author) › Visit Amazon's Joseph J. Ellis Page. But there is urgency to this conversation, too. Each chapter focuses on a founding father (one each on Jefferson, John Adams, Madison, and Washington) and is paired with a chapter on the here and now, specifically how that founding father's moment in history has evolved to our present-day situation. The history segments are good, but the modern sections tend to expose the author’s own political leanings than show what the framers might have thought about modern politics. "We may boast that we are one, the chosen people,: he (Adams) warned, " and we may even thank God that we are not like other men, but, after all, it would be but flattery, delusion, the self-deceit of the Pharisee.” To delve into ho...I don't think so. The idea is interesting, though trying to equate Framer thinking to modern political questions two centuries later is fraught with peril.
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