Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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