This controversial, convincing, and highly original book is important reading for everyone concerned about the origins, present, and future of the American experiment in self-government.
Vindicating the Founders
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
West (politics, Univ. of Dallas) aims to defend the U.S. Constitution and the men who drafted it in 1787 from the accusations of sexism, racism, and prejudice against the poor. West writes from a conservative perspective, and, as he frequently pauses to remind the reader, his arguments are learned and logical. However, this is a deeply flawed book. West writes in a supercilious and dismissive tone. Worse, he digresses far afield to introduce his ideas on contemporary issues, which have almost nothing to do with the founders; his chapter on the family is simply a compendium of current conservative views and he rarely mentions the founders, who said and wrote little on the subject. More eloquent and elegant conservative viewpoints on the founding include Marvin Olasky's Fighting for Liberty and Virtue (Regnery, 1996), M.E. Bradford and Russell Kirk's A Better Guide Than Reason (Transaction, 1994), and Forrest McDonald's We the People (Transaction, 1992).?Fritz Buckallew, Univ. of Central Oklahoma Lib., Edmond
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
One of those rare publications that promises to shape the field of inquiry about the American founders for decades to come. (Newt Gingrich )
A pathbreaking book. The American people finally have a definitive answer to the distortions about the founding that liberals have been pouring into the American mind since the 1960s. I recommend this book heartily. It belongs on every bookshelf and in every classroom in America. (Rush Limbaugh )
Vindicating the Founders is important but (relatively) easy. Learning from them is more difficult. This book helps us learn from Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison. And there aren't many better teachers about America. (Kristol, William )
Compelling, accurate, closely reasoned, and entirely convincing. (Forrest McDonald )
A valuable contribution to history and government studies on the founding. (Belz, Herman )
Vindicating the Founders is an eloquent defense of the principles of the American founding by one of its most learned students. (Dinesh D'Souza )
West is committed to understanding the American founders accurately and in their own terms. His work is unfailingly penetrating and trustworthy, and I eagerly seek it out. (Novak, Michael )
A provocative and interesting book. (J. D. Born, Jr. )
Americans can count themselves fortunate to have at the bar a scholar of West's erudition, good sense, and tenacity. (The Weekly Standard )
West shows how textbooks charge the American Founders with not conforming to present-day standards of political correctness. He also shows how the Founders nevertheless deserve the admiration that they used to receive from teachers and school children many decades ago. West's arguments are convincing. (Leland B. Yeager )
Mr. West presents a compelling and well-researched history of the founding fathers and their motives in establishing a new nation. Most important, he challenges effectively the gross misrepresentation of the founding fathers based on presentistic and misleading political judgments. (London, Herb )
There are important lessons in this book for political thinkers. . . . By challenging popular new ideas and reviving unfashionable old ones, Mr. West contributes to the process of reclaiming the founders. (The Washington Times )
It's hardly news that in our time some Americans have taken to accusing the Founders of their country of hypocrisy. There is something decidedly cheap about such charges. They reek of ingratitude and imprudence. But they are being made by historians who want to substitute their own authority for the Founders' and it is necessary for someone to take them seriously enough to provide a refutation. Thomas West has risen to the occasion with Vindicating the Founders. (The Wall Street Journal )
West has written a powerful vindication of our common civic faith. (Mahoney, Daniel J. The American Enterprise )
With prosecutorial rigor and scholarly erudition, West defends the Founding Fathers and their creation—the American republic—from the relentless assault both have undergone in recent decades. . . . West's tightly argued book adresses a problem that should be a concern to all—namely, the attack on basic American principles. (Trenton Times )
A political scientist at the University of Dallas, West has given us a book that challenges the reigning orthodoxy as expressed by the high priests of multiculturalism. Those who reflexively reject his thesis—the nation's founding is the source of our greatness—have a moral and intellectual duty to refute him. (Society )
Provocative book. . . . Vindicating the Founders is not only about justice, but about how to cultivate the whole cluster of virtues which 'are necessary for a people to be free.' West's admirable study begins a discussion that is long overdue. (The Review Of Politics )
Thomas West has written a courageous book. (Modern Age )
This defense of the founders with their own words and voices is closely reasoned, sharply focused, and highly convincing. . . . This is a superb book. The historical research is excellent, the analysis quite penetrating, and writing quite lucid. This book is rich with truth and wisdom. It deserves a wide audience. (Appelate Journal )
A persuasive case . . . stunningly bold. (William and Mary Quarterly )
West not only scolds those academics who denigrate the brilliance of the founders, he also exposes their shameful prejudice toward those great men who molded the liberties we enjoy today. (Indianapolis Star )
A pathbreaking book. The American people finally have a definitive answer to the distortions about the founding that liberals have been pouring into the American mind since the 1960s. I recommend this book heartily. It belongs on every bookshelf and in every classroom in America. (Rush Limbaugh )
Vindicating the Founders is important but (relatively) easy. Learning from them is more difficult. This book helps us learn from Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison. And there aren't many better teachers about America. (Kristol, William )
Compelling, accurate, closely reasoned, and entirely convincing. (Forrest McDonald )
A valuable contribution to history and government studies on the founding. (Belz, Herman )
Vindicating the Founders is an eloquent defense of the principles of the American founding by one of its most learned students. (Dinesh D'Souza )
West is committed to understanding the American founders accurately and in their own terms. His work is unfailingly penetrating and trustworthy, and I eagerly seek it out. (Novak, Michael )
A provocative and interesting book. (J. D. Born, Jr. )
Americans can count themselves fortunate to have at the bar a scholar of West's erudition, good sense, and tenacity. (The Weekly Standard )
West shows how textbooks charge the American Founders with not conforming to present-day standards of political correctness. He also shows how the Founders nevertheless deserve the admiration that they used to receive from teachers and school children many decades ago. West's arguments are convincing. (Leland B. Yeager )
Mr. West presents a compelling and well-researched history of the founding fathers and their motives in establishing a new nation. Most important, he challenges effectively the gross misrepresentation of the founding fathers based on presentistic and misleading political judgments. (London, Herb )
There are important lessons in this book for political thinkers. . . . By challenging popular new ideas and reviving unfashionable old ones, Mr. West contributes to the process of reclaiming the founders. (The Washington Times )
It's hardly news that in our time some Americans have taken to accusing the Founders of their country of hypocrisy. There is something decidedly cheap about such charges. They reek of ingratitude and imprudence. But they are being made by historians who want to substitute their own authority for the Founders' and it is necessary for someone to take them seriously enough to provide a refutation. Thomas West has risen to the occasion with Vindicating the Founders. (The Wall Street Journal )
West has written a powerful vindication of our common civic faith. (Mahoney, Daniel J. The American Enterprise )
With prosecutorial rigor and scholarly erudition, West defends the Founding Fathers and their creation—the American republic—from the relentless assault both have undergone in recent decades. . . . West's tightly argued book adresses a problem that should be a concern to all—namely, the attack on basic American principles. (Trenton Times )
A political scientist at the University of Dallas, West has given us a book that challenges the reigning orthodoxy as expressed by the high priests of multiculturalism. Those who reflexively reject his thesis—the nation's founding is the source of our greatness—have a moral and intellectual duty to refute him. (Society )
Provocative book. . . . Vindicating the Founders is not only about justice, but about how to cultivate the whole cluster of virtues which 'are necessary for a people to be free.' West's admirable study begins a discussion that is long overdue. (The Review Of Politics )
Thomas West has written a courageous book. (Modern Age )
This defense of the founders with their own words and voices is closely reasoned, sharply focused, and highly convincing. . . . This is a superb book. The historical research is excellent, the analysis quite penetrating, and writing quite lucid. This book is rich with truth and wisdom. It deserves a wide audience. (Appelate Journal )
A persuasive case . . . stunningly bold. (William and Mary Quarterly )
West not only scolds those academics who denigrate the brilliance of the founders, he also exposes their shameful prejudice toward those great men who molded the liberties we enjoy today. (Indianapolis Star )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must-Read for Any Critic of the Founders,
By A Customer
This review is from: Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America (Hardcover)
No one should criticize or condemn the Founding Fathers of this country until they've read either this book by Tom West or every one of the speeches, letters, and other writings of the Founders for themselves. One of the problems in today's country is that we have a bunch of self-appointed PC historians that regularly badger the Founders for falling short of today's enlightened sense of justice without taking the time to read what the Founders had to say on these issues themselves. West lets the Founders speak for themselves by documenting both their writings and their actions. Truly, a valuable contribution to the study of American history. I hope to see more from Tom West.
15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Antidote for Common Anachronisms,
By mjhurst@earthlink.net (Whittier, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America (Hardcover)
Did the Founders think that blacks were morally and intellectually inferior? Yes, most of them did. Did the Founders think that blacks were still fully entitled to the unalienable rights of man? Yes, most of them did. Were intellectual and social debates as multifaceted then as now. You bet. That's why it is possible to find facts and quotations to support a variety of assaults on the Founders, based on selective evidence and anachronistic, collectivist values. This book looks at the people and the circumstances of the founding period in light of the individualist values of the time and the social conflicts and necessities those people had to reconcile. The mere fact that they created a nation more free and more fair than any that had gone before should make us doubt the malign, revisionist, politically-correct histories we've seen in recent decades. This book is not only very good, but much needed.
12 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quick and surprising read full of facts few know,
By Chuck DeVore "Chuck DeVore" (Dripping Springs, TX United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America (Paperback)
Thomas West assembles a compact read in "Vindicating the Founders" that spiritedly challenges the modern critique of America's Founders."Vindicating" shows that post-revolutionary America was, without a doubt, a shining example to the rest of the world of a republican democracy, with thoroughly advanced notions of voting rights, property rights, and welfare. Rejecting those who criticize the Founders for what they didn't do, namely, abolish slavery, Mr. West shows that the philosophy embodied in the Declaration of Independence practically animated the Founders actions, making early America a model of freedom and laying the course for the ultimate extinction of slavery. "Vindicating" is not meant to be an exhaustive treatise on early America. It aims to debunk modern myths that denigrate the Founders, and, in this, "Vindicating" is more than up to the task. Reviewer: Chuck DeVore is a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010, a California State Assemblyman, he served as a Special Assistant for Foreign Affairs in the Department of Defense from 1986 to 1988, retired from the Army National Guard as a lieutenant colonel, and is the co-author of "China Attacks."
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