Something That Will Surprise the World: The Essential Writings of the Founding Fathers [Hardcover]

Susan Dunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 2006

The Founding Fathers--Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, Madison. Subjects of seemingly infinite biographies, they are rarely allowed to speak to us in their own words. But it was their words that mattered most to them. As James Madison once wrote, "the biography of an author must be a history of his writings." Here, finally, these towering figures come together in one volume--in conversation with each other, and with us. The Founders were thinking revolutionaries--they read, questioned, debated, and, most of all, wrote. They theorized about government and political institutions; considered the problem of parties and factions; and reflected on religion and education. In this volume, eminent historian Susan Dunn brings together the Founders' most important letters, speeches, and essays and sets them in the context of their lives and times. Through their words, the Founders created the first democracy of the modern world. Their courage, imagination, and genius would never be surpassed. Here they are, in the present tense of their extraordinary lives. To truly understand them, this is where we must begin.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The Founding Fathers wrote a corpus of material so vast that several collected-works projects now in operation have kept their scholars employed for decades. No general-interest reader has that kind of time, so historian-editor Dunn offers this manageable selection from the writings of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, John Adams, and Madison. She excludes Franklin, without explanation. A preface by highly popular biographer Joseph Ellis speculates about the upsurge of popular interest in these figures, while Dunn's introductions summarize their political inclinations (e.g., Hamilton's toward aggrandizing government, Jefferson's toward restraining it). Otherwise, each document is unmediated, compelling a reader into an independent mind-set that considers why the correspondent (most selections are letters) is taking up the quill. To socialize, to transmit intelligence, to philosophize, to justify--this spectrum of reasons, and the reflections they shed on the writer's character, times, and matter of the moment, lends vivacity to this volume. American history browsers will be pleased with Dunn's choices, which cover the Founders' famous writings but whose heart is in presenting their private communications. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Susan Dunn is Professor of Humanities at Williams College. She is the author or editor of numerous books, including Something That Will Surprise the World: The Essential Writings of the Founding Fathers; and Jefferson’s Second Revolution: The Election Crisis of 1800 and the Triumph of Republicanism. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1St Edition edition (September 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465017797
• ISBN-13: 978-0465017799
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,545,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great potential, poor execution, June 23, 2010

By 

C. McDonald - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Something That Will Surprise the World: The Essential Writings of the Founding Fathers (Paperback)

This book contains a diverse selection of the writings of five major figures in early American history: George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Letters, essays, and speeches ranging across their entire adult lives provide great insight into these men, the times they lived in, and the evolution of their thought and character. We first meet Washington, for example, as a prickly young man very concerned with his honor and his station, but we watch him mellow and mature across the pages and the years.

Unfortunately, much of the value of the book is undermined by the fact that the writings are presented with virtually no context, other than brief biographical and chronological sketches for each man. This is especially problematic for the letters, which make sense only within the context of an ongoing correspondence. We are presented, for example, with Washington's May 22, 1782 letter to Colonel Lewis Nicola, in which Washington excoriates and reprimands Nicola for entertaining some proposal. To find out what that proposal was, however, I had to resort to Google (Nicola proposed that Washington should make himself King of the United States). A few sentences introducing each item or a few pages of explanatory footnotes or endnotes would have solved this problem, and made Something That Will Surprise the World a far more valuable book.

As it stands, I can recommend it only half-halfheartedly.

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely Worth Buying, August 20, 2010

By 

Gina Rucavado - See all my reviews

This review is from: Something That Will Surprise the World: The Essential Writings of the Founding Fathers (Paperback)

Yes, the text selections could use some more contextualization, but all in all, it's a very convenient and useful collection.