Customer Reviews

After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture

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This book was published in 1979, so Mr. Ellis doesn't have the same writing style as he does in "His Excellency" and "American Sphinx." If you can get past the tortuous Preface (or better yet, skip it) and the two boring and uninteresting introductory chapters, the four individual chapters highlighting Charles Willson Peale, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Wiliam Dunlap and Noah Webster are very interesting. In reading these four mini-biographies, I have plans to read "Modern Chivalry" by Brackenridge and the works of Charles Brockden Brown, a close friend of Dunlap's.

Contrary to a previous reviewer, I do feel the preface and early chapters have value. Ellis is attempting to tell a unified story regarding the expectations for American cultural greatness, the roots of these expectations, and the reasons for their lack of flourishing immediately following the revolution. The early chapters and preface provide a context for that story, which plays itself out through the lives of the four individuals recounted in the in the latter part of the book.

These short biographies do complementarily tell this grand story well, but Ellis falls short by not wrapping up the volume with an examination of the common and uncommon characteristics of the four personalities that are detailed. Ellis's superb command of the English language is nearly as present here as it is in his later much lauded works. i did at times feel I was missing important information from the life stories that shaped the ideas of the four studied individuals but this is a reflection of the structure that Ellis chose. It is impossible to get too into the details of any one individual's life in a volume that is using these individuals as supporting evidence for a grander narrative without boring the reader or straying far from the central subject matter.

All in all this is a valuable read - especially for those well acquainted with the triumphs of the founding generation, but not as much its failures and the more minor characters behind the scenes.