Most Helpful Customer Reviews
88 of 108 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fallen hero? Maybe not., May 14, 2007
To say that Aaron Burr has been vilified by historians is a gross understatement. It seems that hardly a generation goes by without each new group of historians falling into lock step with their predecessors in a general hatred of this founding father. Most recently Ron Chernow in his book Alexander Hamilton, the bile reserved for Burr is obvious.
Then comes Nancy Isenberg and her book Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr. I must admit that I started to let this one go. When it arrived at our public library last week I flipped through it and then put in it on the cart to be processed. Then I picked it up again. And again. Eventually I spent the weekend with Isenberg and Burr. I have to admit that I have started the process of being won over. Nancy Isenberg has spent a lot of time researching Fallen Founder. She includes copious notes which are worth reading.
Burr, the killer of everyone's darling Alexander Hamilton was the son of Aaron Burr, Sr. the president of Princeton University. He was bright, hansom, and a charmer. Is it any wonder that he was destined for success?
Some how, however, history has chosen to mark Burr as a murderer and traitor. Isenberg does a masterful job at examining Burr relative to his time in history.
At 414 pages of text and 107 pages of notes, you'll find the examination of Burr a complete one.
You'll want to read this one slowly.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Revision of the Myth of Aaron Burr, January 28, 2008
I have long found Aaron Burr one of the most fascinating characters in early American history and this is a superb new biography of this political genius and scalawag. "Fallen Founder" is the first of many biographies of Burr written by a professional historian. Nancy Isenberg is on the faculty of the University of Tulsa. That, in itself, does not necessary mean that this book rises above the many other popular accounts of the life of Aaron Burr, but it does help ensure that the more productive methodologies, themes, and documentary resources will be brought to the task. Isenberg has done an excellent job in reinterpreting this important figure in American history.
"Fallen Founder" rescues Burr from the popular conception of him merely as a schemer, philanderer, dualist, and seditionist. He was, according to the author, truly one of the nation's founders. He had a significant impact on the implementation of the national government and served well in a variety of capacities. He also championed women's rights, the only founder to do so, and made important contributions to political discourse in that arena. His killing of Alexander Hamilton in a duel proved his political undoing, for it finally gave brutal political opponents the ammunition they needed to discredit him. Moreover, the author convincingly makes the case that Burr's western adventure for which he was charged with treason was essentially a filibuster into Mexico used by his enemies to completely and finally destroy him.
In the end, Isenberg corrects the popular historical perception of Burr in "Fallen Founder. She notes that many of Burr's alleged political and personal "sins" were exaggerated and misrepresented by his opponents and enemies. The man was certainly fallible, but Isenberg demonstrates that Burr deserves better and was indeed an important founder. Her book will be a starting point for all future studies of the life of Burr and will aid greatly in understanding the visceral politics of the early republic.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great and new view on an old villian, July 27, 2007
Fallen Founder, The Life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg is a wonderfully researched treasure. But, unlike a lot of recent biographies of the era, this is a work that stands out as well researched, even going to lengths to "see" a different Burr than many have come to believe they know. Isenberg dispels myths with aplomb and one can rest assured her detractors will feel she is either a biased historian or a Burr apologist. I believe she is neither, but one who desires to begin to set the record straight on this fascinating persona in America's historical landscape.
Professor Isenberg says it best in the preface of the book. "History is not a bedtime story. It is a comprehensive engagement with often obscure documents and books no longer read.- books shelved in old archives, and fragile pamphlets contemporaneous with the subject under study - all of which reflect a world view not ours. We cannot make eighteenth-century men and women "familiar" by endowing them and their families with the emotions we prefer to universalize; nor should be try to equate their politics with politics we understand. But this is what popular biographers do, and as a result, everything we think we know about Aaron Burr is untrue. It is time to start over."
Fallen Founder is not a "complete" biography in that it spends little time on Burr's youth. Rather it picks up where his influence on the American scene is in its nascent stages. Isenberg does a great job researching the reasons for his politics and his movements and political motivations between Washington City and Albany, New York. Her work on his many years as a political rival of Hamilton's is without parallel. Quite obviously it was the duel between the two that marked Burr's infamy. Sadly, the events that precipitated this, and the end of his political career have really never been well chronicled. Isenberg ends that in Chapter 7: The Ruin of the Vice President. The book might be faulted for being a bit "dense" but it is laden with well researched work so only the best narrative writers could improve upon it. That said, for those who might not want to read the full book, much can be gained from just this chapter. It is a thrilling, if tragic, story.
Isenberg has done a service to all historians with her research and writing on Aaron Burr. She is to be commended, something I imagine she will be, many times over - deservedly so.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
