Customer Reviews

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers (The Politically Incorrect Guides)

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Brion McClanahan has written a gem of a book with The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers. Here we get a sense of what the founding generation was really like and what they really believed and did, not the sensational, trivial and silly portrayals that we so often get from non-academic sources such as the History Channel and PBS. As for the academics who write on the Founders, far too many come to their subject with veiled (and some not so thinly veiled) agendas that it is difficult to know who exactly these men were. The great virtue of McClanahan's guide is that it is rooted in that which all good and true history is grounded, the primary sources. As McClanahan himself asserts, if you want to know what the Founders really thought, then simply read what they wrote. When you do, as McClanahan has done, you truly do find a generation of brilliant men who believed in liberty and were willing to fight to secure it.

The book is divided into two parts with the first touching on several contemporary myths about the Founders. Here you will find excellent dismissals of the myths surrounding the Founding generation's supposed egalitarianism and support for democracy. McClanahan demonstrates what any honest and knowledgeable historian of the period knows; the Founders did not believe in equality as it is presently conceived and they certainly were not unreserved advocates for democratic government. In doing this McClanahan reminds us that the Founders created a Federal Republic, not a mass, egalitarian democracy, and an appreciation of the differences between these forms of government is an essential starting point to understanding the history of the early American Republic.

Other myths exposed include Benjamin Franklin's legendary brood of illegitimate children, Alexander Hamilton's homosexuality and George Washington's alleged affair with Sally Fairfax, his neighbor's wife. And, of course, what expose' of founding myths would be complete without a discussion of Thomas Jefferson's supposed affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, the evidence for which is circumstantial and inconclusive although it is often asserted as fact these days.

McClanahan also does an excellent job of demonstrating just how conservative the American Revolution actually was in that American Patriots were not asserting radical new doctrines inspired by Enlightenment philosophers but principles grounded in the traditions of English liberty and American colonial experience. This was the key feature of the American Revolution and why it differed so remarkably from that of the French.

Also on offer are brief but thought-provoking discussions of several important contemporary issues like gun control, the role of religion in American life, federalism, and monetary policy, all in relation to what the Founders would have thought about these issues if they were alive today.

As good as the first part of the book is, however, the best is probably the brief biographical sketches of the Founding Fathers themselves. The "Big Six" are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. McClanahan delves into each man's life with an eye to expose the modern, presentistic mythology that has encased these men in the popular imagination, and we find that while the names are familiar much of who these men really were has been lost or willfully forgotten. McClanahan uncovers them for everyone to see.

In addition to the "Big Six," McClanahan rediscovers 14 "forgotten founders" that every American should know about. These include names such as Elbridge Gerry, from whom we get the term "gerrymander," the great partisan warrior Francis Marion, inspiration of Mel Gibson's The Patriot and John Taylor of Caroline. We are also treated to very iconoclastic and revealing reappraisal of John Marshall as both a member of the Founding generation and early American jurist.

In all, this is an outstanding introduction to the Founders, one that is an antidote to the indoctrination so many Americans receive in school and the popular media when the topic is the beginnings of the United States. It is highly recommended and makes for the perfect gift for yourself or someone with a yearning to know more about the Founding Fathers.

This is a truly wonderful book. It answers some of the many questions I had about what my three children were learning about American History during their six years studying in Boston Latin School. Living in the heart of historic Boston, I was constantly being stunned and amazed that my children didn't know who the various statues in their neighborhood honored. They had grown up riding their Big Wheels and bicycles around some of these bronze statues of famous Americans without having the faintest idea of each statue's identity. All three could tell me who Harriet Tubman was, but none could tell me exactly why Paul Revere, Sam Adams and John Hancock were famous. They did recognize two of the names--one was a well-known beer and the other was the name of Back Bay Boston's tallest building.
For all those fans of the Jay Leno television Walking Tours who were constantly shocked of the level of ignorance in the general public as demonstrated by his perfectly normal appearing tourists that Jay asked simple questions to at "Universal City," this book answers many of the questions that none of Jay's clueless average American tourists could answer even after he gave them clues. You know, "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb" or "Who is Washington D.C. named after?" This book is a long overdue correction of the media and educational record. The honor of the title of the "Greatest Generation" belongs to "the Founders, the men who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for the cause of liberty and independence...The Founding generation has no equal, and it deserves to be rescued from politically correct textbooks, teachers, and professors who want to dismiss the Founder as cadre of dead, white, sexist, slave-holding males."
"De-emphasizing, or disparaging, men like Washington, Jefferson, and Henry serves a purpose. It is meant to sever our attachment to, and our respect for, the Founders and their principles and to replace them with the Left's own ideal of a living' Constitution that better reflects our increasing diverse nation and the interests..."
"The irony is that the Founders had a better understanding of the problems we face today than do our own members of Congress." This book will help explain why all of this is true and why the myths and falsehoods about the Founding Fathers have purposely been perpetrated by the educational system and the liberal media.
This volume tries to correct these myths such as the Founders "created a democracy." They created a republic and greatly feared a pure democracy. In addition to correcting the widely held myths, the first part of the book also explains "A Conservative Revolution" that is what "The Declaration of Independence," "The U.S. Constitution" together with its "Bill of Rights" really was. The third section of the book's First Part spells out the issues facing us today, but that were foreseen by the Founders and how they devised a way to handle them centuries into the future.
Part II gives great biographical sketches of the "The Big Six" of the Founding Fathers--Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton and Franklin. It then discusses several of the almost completely forgotten and ignored Founders--Adams, Carroll, Clinton (George not our Bill), Hancock and others most Americans have never heard have. The conclusion of the book is entitled "What the Founding Fathers Would Do" if they were here now. That includes radical ideas such as "Follow the Constitution," "Cut Federal Spending and Reduce the Public Debt," "Eliminate Taxes...," "Reassert State Control over State Issues," and "Preserve the Bill of Rights." The book also explains why the author can say this without actually having spoken to the individual "Founders." It is possible to read and study their own thoughts and words on all these subjects and to then study their actions. Unlike today, the Founders seldom said one thing and then did exactly the opposite. And because of their personal experiences, they predicted many of the current problems facing American and tried to set up a system to avoid, or later, correct them. The book includes a excellent index and bibliography to help the reader double-check anything he might find difficult to believe or understand.
While this review may seem too much like an outline, the book is actually quite fascinating, especially the biographies and the events surrounding the people in those biographical portraits. This is what is never taught in American Schools anymore. This is why Americans are so ignorant of what their government is doing to them. This is why they don't know how to correct what their elected, and now many non-elected and unanswerable officials are doing to them. This book should be required reading in every high school and college in America. It's pretty interesting and even the students in our poorest public schools could comprehend it. After all, one of the few good results of all the texting, tweeting, computering going on today is that the users have to both read and write. The social websites are helping to correct the deficits in learning to read, write and understand that aren't being taught in most American schools. They are actually becoming a wonderful media that opens the whole world to the users of these personal communication devices.
This book is the latest in a series of "Politically Incorrect Guides" and for people who wish to better understand Capitalism and The Great Depression and the New Deal, and other important subjects, these guides are a wonderful starting point.

I wanted to like this book, as I think that the entire idea of the PIG series is necessary. But the author is apparently a southerner who wants to share the blame for slavery with the northern colonies as well as the southern ones. This may be true, but one of his examples is that Benjamin Franklin owned slaves even while he published an abolitionist newspaper; this is a half truth.

Benjamin Franklin owned only two slaves. He became an abolitionist after visiting an African school and seeing African children learning just like European children. But he realized that if he simply released his two slaves without educating them, they would not be able to fend for themselves. He educated them and eventually released them, but the author of this book never mentions that.

The author wants to be dishonest and call it "conservatism," when it is simply southern apologism and dishonesty. And he chooses to malign Benjamin Franklin, who was one of our most important Founders. How can one trust anything that he writes if he pushes his own political agenda in such a dishonest manner?

This is a perfect resource for those seeking materials designed to educate, round out and fill in those questions about our most sacred beginnings. I've been researching this very topic for many months and McClanahan's book helped tremendously, as did the following other sources: Spaeth & Smith's Constitution of the United States, Dick Morris's 'Catastrophe', Levin's 'Liberty and Tyranny', 'Politically incorrect guide to the Constitution' and several others but hands down, Brion's book is the BEST, it's laid out the cleanest, makes the most sense, has interest stories, terrific analogies, keeps you reading, makes kids WANT to learn...it's a book that belongs in EVERY American's den..

Dr. McClanahan should be breaking down every difficult subject for Americans into 'politically incorrect' guides, he's great at it!!! this is my two cents!!

Annie Hamilton

There are many reasons that the modern culture, political class, and education establishment go out of their way to ignore our Founders whenever they can. If they can't ignore them they attack them and slander them rather than examine what they believed and really stood for. Why? Because when you deeply consider what led them to risk their lives, spend their personal fortunes, and physically suffer for the founding of America you will soon realize that we have traded our precious inheritance of liberty for a mess of pottage being sold as security and fairness. While the Progressives are getting their way right now, I hope people continue to wake up and reject them completely. We can still undo this current foolishness if we react strongly, quickly, and in large numbers.

This is another in the series of Politically Incorrect Guides from Regnery and this one takes a tour of the lives and thoughts of many of our key founders. Some you will think you know and others you will never have heard of. In every case, Brian McClanahan will broaden your perspective of who the founders are, what they were after, and why we need to hold onto their legacy with both hands.

The book is in two parts. Part I has three chapters. Chapter One focuses on myths we popularly hold about the founding such as democracy being the ideal of our founders, the slavery was only in our South, the issues of illegitimate children and so forth. Chapter Two focuses on the rather Conservative principles our founders had. They were not wild-eyed radicals or anarchists. Chapter Three focuses on issues such as gun rights, limits to the branches of government including the courts, and welfare.

Part II focuses on the big six founders: Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin. You get short biographies with surprising details and the author's view of their legacy.

Part III provides about ten pages each on fourteen founders you might not know much about, but should. They are Samuel Adams, Charles Carroll, George Clinton, John Dickinson, Elbridge Gerry, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Nathaniel Macon, Francis Marion, John Marshall, George Mason, Roger Sherman, and John Taylor.

If you want to find a bias in this book it might be the author's emphasis on Southerners. But that might be because I am from the North and our post Civil War history has certainly gone out of its way to diminish the South and assign them great guilt. No, I am in no way excusing chattel slavery or justifying human bondage in any way. But no matter the sins, there are still virtues we should see and important history we must see clearly. So, even if you disagree with the author, do so with an open mind and careful arguments rather than simple rejection.

The book is an easy read with handy notes and points you to lots of other books you can read to expand you knowledge of this history.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Context... The real question is what was the context under which the constitution was written. I love this book for helping to frame the context of the struggle at that point in history. It helps:

1. To understand that the colonists did not consider themselves as "AMERICANs". Their thinking was that of "free Englishmen" with all the rights and priviledges that went with any Englishman residing in England. After their attempts to reconcile with the crown failed for unfair taxation and other issues, then they were left with little choice but to start the revolution.

2. To understand that the thinking was the States were to hold the ultimate power with limited central government. It started with united States, not United States.

3. To understand that they founding fathers were not against Christianity or religion (After all, Inalienable Rights are given by God), but they were against government promoting or creating a religion (e.g. Church of England). They did, however, accept and promote the presence of God as part of their lives.

4. To understand the most of the founding fathers were against democracy! The constitution established a republic (not a democracy), and even the Senators were originally appointed by the states (not elected to office like members of the House of Representatives) and intentially avoided direct election of the President via the Electoral College process.

There are a lot more interesting tidibts, especially in each chapter dealing with the key founding fathers.

The real value of the book, to me, was helping understand the context of the life and times which drove these men to develop this great document we call the constitution. I would recommend everyone read this book to help put history into context.

This book is okay and the writing style is almost fun to read. The information shared within is hardly "politically incorrect", however. I give it three stars because I find it a bit hypocritical.

The information isn't new. It's the basic sort of stuff you give if you, say, do a tiny bit of reading on your own. The stance the author took is what set me off, however. His whole foundation is "everyone is dissing the founding fathers and I think that's crap and they're so great and wonderful." He goes into detail into trying to disprove the various indiscretions, trying to tout the founding fathers as ideals.

You know, like "there is no hard 'evidence' that these decendants of slaves are related to the president -- even though it was genetically proven they are related -- they *could've* been fathered by his brother so I refuse to believe it" or "yes, I know he WAS a slave holder but he didn't break up families cause he was just such a great, moral guy."

This slant on history is just as bad as believing they are the lowest of the low. Why is it that people can't just accept that they were men of their time? We don't need to read histories about Washington that say he was a vile horrible person because he had slaves or that Washington was the caring, loving founding father who hated slavery (even though he had slaves), refused to break up families, and freed the slaves on his death.

He had slaves. Most people with a bit of money did at the time. Let's move on people.

I found this 'guide' to be an informative complement to larger volumes I've read on the individuals who played such an important role during our nation's initial years. Each vignette, a snapshot of the individual's life and times, gave me new information about the person, his relationships with others at the time, his economic and political philosophies. I enjoyed all of the snapshots, but especially those of Washington, Hamilton, Lee, and Marion.

It is distressing that this incredible story of human development is not taught any more in depth in our schools.

I have not read any of the other 'politically incorrect' guides, but after enjoying this, will consider them individually.

All of these "Politcially Incorrect Guides" contain information that has been systemically covered up for decades and has, for the first time, interconnected pertinent facts that complete a picture never before presented to the great "unwashed".

In the Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, Dr. McClanahan dispels the many untruths regarding the Founders and shows why their ideas are still relevant today. Progressive historians want to discredit the Founding Fathers and portray them as horrible people so that Americans will reject the Founders' beliefs and intent for our country. One popular misconception is that America is a democracy when in actuality it is a republic. The Founding Fathers feared that if society became overly democratic, one faction of people could oppress the others. Therefore, power must be divided among different branches of government . No single branch of government can become too powerful; rather checks and balances are set in place . The Founding Fathers were not influenced by the ideas of the French philosophers and did not fight a war to achieve radical new goals like in France. The Founders strongly believed in limited government and states rights .Controversial issues such as the right to bear arms and the place of religion in society is discussed in this book. The Founders were deeply religious and certainly did not want religion to be excluded from public life. They also believed that individuals have the right to own firearms.

In this book, Dr. McClanahan also mentions some of the Founding Fathers that are less known to most Americans and points out why they are not discussed in most history textbooks. After reading this book, I definitely feel that I have learned more about the Founding Fathers than I knew before. The author includes quotes by the Founders and lists other books to read about them. The author even includes a chapter on what the Founders would do today regarding various issues such as: government spending, the national debt, use of taxpayer money, states rights, the constitution ,etc. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn the truth about America's Founding Fathers.