Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr [Hardcover]

Nancy Isenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2007

This definitive biography of the revolutionary era villain overturns every myth and image we have of him

The narrative of America’s founding is filled with godlike geniuses—Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson—versus the villainous Aaron Burr. Generations have been told Burr was a betrayer—of Hamilton, of his country, of those who had nobler ideas. All untrue. He did not turn on Hamilton; rather, the politically aggressive Hamilton was preoccupied with Burr and subverted Burr’s career at every turn for more than a decade through outright lies and slanderous letters.

In Fallen Founder, Nancy Isenberg portrays the founders as they all really were and proves that Burr was no less a patriot and no less a principled thinker than those who debased him. He was an inspired politician who promoted decency at a moment when factionalism and ugly party politics were coalescing. He was a genuine hero of the Revolution, as much an Enlightenment figure as Jefferson, and a feminist generations ahead of his time. A brilliant orator and lawyer, he was New York’s attorney general, a senator, and vice president. Denounced as a man of extreme tastes, he in fact pursued a moderate course, and his political assassination was accomplished by rivals who feared his power and who promoted the notion of his sexual perversions.

Fallen Founder is an antidote to the worshipful biographies far too prevalent in the histories of the revolutionary era. Burr’s story returns us to reality: to the cunning politicians our nation’s founders really were and to a world of political maneuvering, cutthroat politicking, and media slander that is stunningly modern.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Does Burr belong in the pantheon of founding fathers? Or is he, as historians have asserted ever since he fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel, a faux founder who happened to be in the right place at the right time? Was he really the enigmatic villain, the political schemer who lacked any moral core, the sexual pervert, the cherubic-faced slanderer so beloved of popular imagination? This striking new biography by Isenberg (Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America) argues that Burr was, indeed, the real thing, a founder "at the center of nation building" and a "capable leader in New York political circles." Interestingly, if controversially, Isenberg believes Burr was "the only founder to embrace feminism," the only one who "adhered to the ideal that reason should transcend party differences." Far from being an empty vessel, she says, Burr defended freedom of speech, wanted to expand suffrage and was a proponent of equal rights. Burr was not without his faults, she concludes, but then, none of the other founders was entirely angelic, either, and his actions must be viewed in the context of his political times. As this important book reminds us, America's founders behaved like ordinary human beings even when they were performing their extraordinary deeds. Illus. (May 14)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In this positive portrayal of the controversial Aaron Burr (1756-1836), Isenberg departs from all previous biographers, deploring their lack of basic research. Although she acknowledges that studying Burr is hampered by the loss of his papers in a shipwreck, Isenberg more than compensates by tapping negative publicity disseminated by Burr's political enemies. Comparing their scurrilous reports with private descriptions of Burr as cultured, well liked, and progressive for the times (Isenberg approves him as a "feminist"), the author argues that Burr's reputation was marred not by genuine defects of character but by political competition. And she details the three episodes on which opinion of Burr rises and falls: his tie with Jefferson for the presidency in the 1800 election, his 1804 duel with Hamilton, and his 1807 treason trial. Making a strong case for revising received wisdom about Burr, Isenberg significantly contributes to the history of the early republic. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1St Edition edition (May 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670063525
• ISBN-13: 978-0670063529
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #407,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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88 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fallen hero? Maybe not., May 14, 2007

By 

Robert Busko (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (Hardcover)

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.

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Revision of the Myth of Aaron Burr, January 28, 2008

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (Hardcover)

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.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Adams' opinion in 1815, September 3, 2009

By 

Catherine Burr (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (Hardcover)

This letter is from an 1815 letter of John Adam, which Nancy Isenberg quotes (I got this off the web). I found her book a refreshing and well-referenced addition to my Burr library. I am an avid Burrite. I also feel that every American should be able to debate these men and the politics involved - because then we could have far more intelligent discussions of men and politics today. The more things change, the more human nature reveals itself as the same. Yes, Adams was also a target of Hamilton's venomous arts; but Adams is also agreed to be honest and decent, which means he could probably never get elected today:

"I have never known the prejudice in favor of birth, parentage and descent, more conspicuous than in the instance of Col. Burr. That gentleman was connected by blood with many respectable families in New England. [...] He had served in the army, and came out of it with the character of a knight without fear, and an able officer. He had afterward studied and practiced law with application and success. Buoyed up on those religious practicalities, and this military and juridical reputation, it is no wonder that Governor Clinton and Chancellor Livingston should take notice of him. They made him Attorney General, and the legislature sent him to Congress, where, I believe, he served six years. At the next election, he was, however, left out, and being at that time somewhat embarrassed in circumstances, and reluctant to return to the bar, he would have rejoiced in an appointment in the army. In this situation I proposed to Washington, and through him to the triumvirate [Washington, Hamilton and Pinckney] to nominate Col. Burr for a brigadier-general. Washington's answer to me was, 'By all that I have known and heard, Col. Burr is a brave and able officer; but the question is whether he has not equal talents at intrigue.' How shall I describe to you my sensations and reflections at that moment. He had compelled me to promote over the heads of Lincoln, Clinton, Gates, Knox, and others, and even over Pinckney, one of his own triumverates [Hamilton] the most restless, impatient, artful, indefatigable, and unprincipled intriguer in the United States, if not in the world, to be second in command under himself, and now dreaded an intriguer in a poor brigadier. He did however propose it, at least to Hamilton. But I was not permitted to nominate Burr. If I had been, what would have been the consequences? Shall I say that Hamilton would have been now alive, and Hamilton and Burr now at the head of our affairs. What then? If I had nominated Burr without the consent of the triumvirate, a negative in the Senate was certain."