Customer Reviews

What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book came as a gift last Christmas. At first it didn't look like it was going to have much to offer - a short and simple book from yet another writer trying to retroactively impose the views and opinions of the Founders on today's issues and events. But, it was a gift, and so it was thrown onto the "books to read" stack where it figured to be short work before getting relegated to the miscellaneous section of the history shelf on the bookcase. It did not take too many pages to realize that first impressions, in this instance, were quite wrong. This book has a good deal to say and it does so consistently and efficiently from beginning to end. In good, clean form it takes a single idea and looks at it from a different angle in each chapter. The end result is a book that is thorough, to the point, and enjoyable to read.

While the title indicates that this is simply a book about how the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and the rest of the founding bunch would deal with today's issues, there is something more to be had from this book. And that something is an important point which has been frequently lost on recent generations of Americans. It's almost assumed at this point to speak about the American Founders as though they were a unified body in both action and thought. Before considering how "the founders" might deal with our issues, and when considering how they actually dealt with their issues, it needs to be understood, first and foremost, that as a whole they never really agreed all that much with each other about anything, other then the fact they wanted to be rid of English rule - and even with that there was some squabbling.

The reason that this point is one of importance is that when we hear of the Founders today, and we do quite a bit from quite a few, it always seems to be from someone representing a particular interest group (a politician, an educator, a journalist, or some other hack-intellectual) who is speaking to us about the founders as if they were pinning their name onto their lapels suggesting that "the founders" as a whole, would support us. This is almost never the case. And this is a book, whether or not by design, that does a superb job of speaking to that point.

This is a worthwhile read for fans of history, or fans of reading period. And, as it did for me, it will make an excellent gift. Recommended to anybody - 5 stars.

How many of us haven't considered the founding fathers' reactions every time we receive a speeding ticket, pass a police checkpoint, or read about a Department of Homeland Security? By premise alone, this book is a timely and necessary addition to contemporary political works. However, the delivery is a mixed bag. Some of the questions are insightful, well-researched and informative. As other reviewers indicated, others are not and simply regurgitate well known history, as an undergrad would on a history 101 exam. I do enjoy Brookheiser as a writer, and his list of websites based upon the foiunding fathers' personality traits was quite humorous and fit well with what we knew about these men.

Perhaps I expected too much, as a work such of this could fill volumes, given sufficient research. This book, although enjoyable to read at times, is a highly abridged version of what this book could have been.

Richard Brookhiser has put together a very quick reading book detailing many of the Founder's thoughts and contrasting them with today's issues in "What Would the Founders Do?-- Our Questions, Their Answers".

To the more well read reader on the history of the founding of the country, little of this book will be in any way new. But, I'd suggest this book is a fantastic handbook for young readers past the age of 15. Young students would do themselves well to read this book and become familiar with some of the things the Founders thought and some of the situations they faced. They will find it in an easy to read and understand format, free of too much boring background, dates and historiocity. But, this handy book should also tend to help inform all people who are only dimly aware of what the Founders intended for our country and might help answer not only why the Founders are still relevant but might help teach many of the ideals that this country was formed upon.

Unfortunately, it might also tend to make some people who claim that the Founders era is past and now irrelevant more sure that their world is long past and we that we therefore should "moveon"... excuse the pun. Of course, no sense can get through to someone who thinks this way anyway, I'd guess.

The one thing that I don't "get" with this book, though, is the last sort of comical bit about the "Founder's Blogs". This is four pages of humorous asides about what the Founders might put in a blog should they still be around. I have to say, I just don't understand what this is doing in this book? I suppose they are sort of clever, but this chapter just doesn't seem relevant to the rest of the book at all. It seems more like something that Brookhiser should have on his website as opposed to ending his book with.

Still, I say this is a great book for the young. Get one for every teen in your family. It'll do them good since we don't seem to have any schools that teach such stuff anymore! Kudos to Brookhiser for a quick, fun read that might help our youth.

Often when one turns on the television to any political talk show, regardless of the station, it is not unusual to find someone on program invoking men from centuries past. The person will claim that founders of the United States would support position A (their position) and be against position B (their opponent's position). Often the person will even argue that their opponent's position is an outright betrayal of the founders' vision. These `talking heads*' often make quite a few assumptions with their statements. The biggest and most popular of these assumptions is that all the founders thought the same way. They did not, there were several founders and they all thought differently about different things. Therefore, for every idea you have, you probably could find a founder who would support that particular idea.

I have always wondered when people ask what Jefferson, Washington, or any other founder would want: do they consider biographical time lines? For example, if someone asks what Thomas Jefferson would feel about Obama's health care plan, I always wonder which Tom Jefferson the person asking means.

· Is this person referring to the Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776?

· Is the person referring to President Thomas Jefferson in 1805?

· Is the person thinking of Jefferson as if he woke up from his really long nap he started on July 4th, 1826, and the first thing he does now that he has woken up is to pick up a newspaper and read about the new health care law?

That last one is important to me. After all, a great leader is not someone who believes in the same thing on Wednesday that he or she believed on Monday regardless what happened on Tuesday. I have often thought, through my own study of the Founding Fathers that, if given all the information, they would quite pleased with the country's progress.

However, in his book, Brookhiser creates and interesting way of tying modern events to the founding era. He takes questions that modern Americans have and uses it to provide history lessons into how the founders handled similar situations in their time-period. One of the questions posed was: `were the founders were as poll driven as the politicians of today?'

"No one in the founding era was interrupted at dinner by some stranger asking his opinion of current events. Yet public opinion could be gauged, by demonstrations, by memorials---letters to politicians from citizen groups---and by newspapers. (Some founders thought measuring public opinion was all a newspaper was good for: `Like a thermometer,' wrote Fisher Ames, `it will show what the weather is, but will not make it better') The founding fathers disagreed, however, about how public opinion should be expressed, and what weight to give it." p. 198-9

He then goes on to explain that George Washington hated lobbyists** and thought they were constitutional usurpers, while James Madison both liked and used them.

What Would the Founders Do?, is a fun book and great teaching tool. Those who read this book it will enjoy the fun in comparing the world of the founders to our own.

* "Talking heads" is an old phrase for news anchors and others who appear on T.V. news programs. It has nothing to do with the old rock band.

**To use a modern term.

Well written book that attempts to give insight as to what the founders thought of their situation at the time and how it relates to todays questions. Some parts are vague but overall the book is a nice easy reader. I recommend it for the history buff like myself.

This book is a romp through the personalities of the founders -- really a great book. Brookhiser is familiar with these guys and brings their personalities and styles to life.

It's not a boring old history book (I love boring old history books). It is full of laugh lines and I really enjoyed it.

The founders were such CHARACTERS. This book makes them lively again.

Brookhiser weaves together the personal lives, letters, public pronouncements, and scandals surrounding Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, and Washington (and more!), and he does it topically. Did they always practice what they preached? Indeed, not! But... they were thoughtful, provocative, passionate, and committed.

It is so richly refreshing to read a book with so little political correctness. The founders used none -- they were blunt. And obstinate.

This is a joy of a book. If you just want a little taste of the founders, without reading a boring old history book, then these little 224-pages are for you. If you love the founders and like their style, this is also for you.

The money quote of the book is on page 31. Want to know what the founders would do? "America is about liberty, or it is about nothing."

Be sure to check out the posthumous blogging after page 221. Heh heh heh.

An excellent book, well writen. It amazes me how the author could put his mind in the mind of history. I highly recommend this book. An excellent review into the minds of our founding fathers.

Brookhiser got the idea for this book from the audiences when he would give a public lecture on the founders. "Richard, what would the founding fathers have said about...? (illegal immigration, marijuana, the war in Iraq, etc.) So, he collected a number of those questions, did a little research and wrote this fun little book.

Richard Brookhiser is the writer of the best overall biography of George Washington that I have read,Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington. This one is not the same quality, although I am giving them both the same score: 4 stars.

Why? A book of this sort is just different creature than a biography. By its very nature it is a series of starts and stops (the question and answer format). This inhibits the flow of the book in many ways, but does make it good for the so-called bathroom reader. Brookhiser's sense of humor shines through, as does his genuine respect and affection for these men (the exceptionally successful ladies man Gouverneur Morris, in particular).

Just for fun, at the end he makes up several descriptions of the sorts of blogs the founders might have written, including 3 for that unstoppable writer Benjamin Franklin. Washington bows out but promises to read them all in a snail mail letter (if you know about him you are not surprised). My favorites, though, are Sam Adams with his blog "BeerandLiberty.com" (conspiracy theories and drinking tips) and John Adams with "TheLifeCareerOpinionsandWritingsofJohnAdamsExaminedandDefendedwithCommentsonhisContemporaries.com" which features long posts, flame wars in the comments and the warning that John makes frequent appearances as a troll on other blogs. Sounds about right to me.

The Founders were more interesting and complex than Brookhiser - normally an excellent writer - portrays. Lots of words, few conclusions.

Mr. Brookhiser poses some intriguing questions in this book (Would the Founders permit assisted suicide? What would the Founders say about stem-cell research? Would the Founders enact campaign-finance reform?). Unfortunately, for the most part, his answers are much more speculative than inspired, and more rooted in the past than imagined into our present.

There are two ways you can manage the "What would the Founders do/think?" project.

One way is to climb in your Time Machine and transport yourself back to the Founders' era, "bringing the questions into their time," so to speak. This is generally what Mr. Brookhiser seems to have done, and his sketches are nearly always laid out in the context of what life, thought, experience, and expectation were in the 18th century.

A second approach would be to entice the Founders into that machine and transport them into our era, from which vantage point they can be interrogated. In the process, the Founders would themselves "age" and experience the alterations in events, intellectual and cultural developments, and attitudes that inform our era.

These two approaches are likely to lead to very different answers as to "what the Founders would do," and while the author's choice has its own integrity and validity, it is not the one I would have chosen, nor the one that I think leads to the most compelling and useful speculation.

As an intellectual exercise, this book is entertaining and to some extent thought-provoking, but rather in the harmless parlor game fashion. Many of the questions are profound ones, and a collection of speculative essays that matched their import would be welcome indeed. This book, though, fails to bring much depth or probing to the questions, and the discussions are unlikely to provoke new insights.

It is interesting that Mr. Brookhiser's bibliography doesn't include a most stimulating source of information on the Founders' own intellectual underpinnings (Forrest McDonald's excellent "Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution"). Those interested in Mr. Brookhiser's mini-essays may find much of interest in the McDonald book. (Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution).