Advanced Placement United States History
A Reader's Guide to Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis*
Mr. Adams
Outside Reading
adamss@cliu.org
Your answers to the following questions must be typed and are due the first day of class in the semester you have this course. There will also be a test that will include short answer and short essay questions from the entire book, not only the topics in the questions below. This assessment will be given within the first week of the semester in which you have this course.
Please feel free to contact me at the email address above with any questions over the summer. Enjoy.
Mr. Adams
1. The anecdote that Benjamin Rush liked to repeat about an overheard conversation between Benjamin Harrison and Elbridge Gerry on July 4, 1776, makes clear that the signers of the Declaration of Independence felt some doubt about their chances of surviving their revolutionary act. As Ellis points out, if the British commanders had been more aggressive, "The signers of the Declaration would . . . have been hunted down, tried, and executed for treason, and American history would have flowed forward in a wholly different direction" [p. 5]. Why is it so difficult to grasp this notion of the new nation's utter fragility? How successful is Founding Brothers in taking the reader back in time, in order to witness the contingencies of a historical gamble in which "sheer chance, pure luck" [p. 5] were instrumental in determining the outcome?
2. Ellis has said, "We have no mental pictures that make the revolutionary generation fully human in ways that link up with our own time. . . . These great patriarchs have become Founding Fathers, and it is psychologically quite difficult for children to reach a realistic understanding of their parents, who always loom larger-than-life as icons we either love or hate." How does Founding Brothers address this problem, and how does it manage to humanize our image of the founders? How does the book's title relate to this issue?
3. What was really at stake in the disagreement and duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton? If Hamilton felt that the disparaging statements he had made about Burr were true, should he have lied in order to save his life? Was this merely a war over words? Did words have more significance then than they do now? What role did newspapers play in the drama, and how is the media's role different or similar today?
4. Because of the founders' refusal to press for abolition, the slavery question was bequeathed to Abraham Lincoln to solve--and the Civil War illustrated just how divisive the issue was. How accurate was George Washington's belief that "slavery was a cancer on the body politic of America that could not at present be removed without killing the patient" [p. 158]? Should the nation's leaders have pressed harder, given that "the further one got from 1776, the lower the revolutionary fires burned and the less imperative the logic of the revolutionary ideology seemed" [p. 104]? What difference might it have made in the racial currents of contemporary American life if slavery had been abolished in the early days of the nation.
5. How does the character of George Washington come across, as Ellis presents him and in the quoted extracts of the farewell address? How does Washington measure up to the mythology that surrounded him even in his own time? What qualities made Washington so indispensable to the new nation?
6. What is most surprising about Thomas Jefferson's character, as presented by Ellis? Which aspects of his personality, or which particular actions or decisions, seem incongruous in the man who wrote the idealistic words of the Declaration of Independence? Do you think historians should include this type of psychological analysis in their work?
7. Ellis has said of Founding Brothers, "If there is a method to my madness in the book, it is rooted in the belief that readers prefer to get their history through stories. Each chapter is a self-contained story about a propitious moment when big things got decided. . . . In a sense, I have formed this founding generation into a kind of repertory company, then put them into dramatic scenes which, taken together, allow us to witness that historic production called the founding of the United States." Does his focus on creating separate narrative units succeed in making the complex history of the founders simpler to penetrate and understand? Are there any drawbacks to presenting history this way?
8. In the conflict between Republicans and Federalists described by Ellis throughout the book, readers can understand the origins of party factionalism that is a strong factor in American politics to this day. If, as Ellis writes, "The dominant intellectual legacy of the Revolution, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, stigmatized all concentrated political power and even . . . depicted any energetic expression of governmental authority as an alien force that all responsible citizens ought to repudiate and, if possible, overthrow" [p. 11], what compromises were made in order to bring a stable national government to fruition? Does the apparent contradiction between Republican and Federalist principles still create instability in the American system?
9. Why were the Virginians so afraid of authority? even of Washington who was one of them? Was Washington’s presidency “an essential exception to full blooded republican principles”? (p. 155)
10. In recent years historians have tended to avoid focusing on such issues as leadership and character, and more is being written about popular movements and working people whose lives exemplify a sort of democratic norm. Ellis clearly goes against this trend in offering Founding Brothers as "a polite argument against the scholarly grain" [p. 12]. Does he effectively convince his readers that the founding of the American nation was, in fact, largely accomplished by a handful of extraordinary individuals?
*Based on a guide found at www.bn.com.
Honors American Studies I
Summer Reading Assignment
Mr. Cahalan
Summer 2008
The summer reading assignment for ninth grade Honors American Studies I consists of two novels set in 19th Century America: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe and The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane. During the first week of school, the students will be examined on their understanding of these works of historical fiction.
The exam will consist of a combination of short-response and essay questions for both novels. The exam requires that students be exceedingly familiar with the texts, so a close and careful reading of the books is highly recommended. Students will not be able to use notes or outlines during the exam.
See you in September!
Mr. Cahalan
cahalant@cliu.org
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