Posted on 05/28/2002 11:05:06 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
| Review: 'Founding Brothers' is a television landmark It's a common refrain today when a politician runs awry: "What would the founding fathers say?" The implication, of course, is that the founding fathers were above reproach, men who stuck to the straight and narrow, laying down a shining example for us to follow. The History Channel, in a mini-series that ought to be required viewing for all letters-to-the-editor writers, dissipates the fog that now surrounds these men and their reputations. The sad and unavoidable truth is the founding fathers lied, lusted and lurched from dilemma to dilemma, just like the folks in office today. The four-hour tell-all focuses on the men most of us associate with the founding of the republic -- Washington, Adams and Jefferson. The glue that bound these strong personalities together was the American Revolution. Once that was over, they came apart like the buttons on one of Britney Spear's blouses. Washington, alone of the founders, emerges with very few blemishes on his reputation. Another founder emerges from the series in a reshaped fashion -- Alexander Hamilton. Heretofore best know for getting killed in a duel with Aaron Burr, Hamilton was actually a major player in Washington's cabinet. He was arguably the most important man in the government after the president. He was also, sadly, constantly plotting against his brethren, The show goes to considerable length to chronicle the split between Adams and Jefferson. Their arguments - small government vs big government - still resonate today. One of the salient points, alas, of the series, is the role of newspapers in the verbal war between the followers of Adams (the Federalists) and Jefferson (the Republicans). The newspapers became partisan players, hurling charges and invectives that only served to deepen the divide. But these two presidents did set one shining example, perhaps their greatest lesson. Near the end of their lives, Adams and Jefferson renewed their correspondence and their once-close relationship. Like the government they helped found, their friendship weathered terrible storms and still survived. Click here to return to story: http://www.savannahnow.com/stories/052502/LOCfoundingfathers.shtml |
To say the founding fathers "lurched from dilemma to dilemma, just like the folks in office today." is more than a little pile of BS.
The founding fathers were leading a revolution against the most powerful nation in the world. At the same time they were trying to unite the thirteen colonies, actually more like thirteen different countries at the time, into a single united nation.
I shudder to think what Daschle or Gephardt would have done... of course Clinton would be selling guns, ammo and maps to the British.
Also found it interesting that the 'brothers' learned early on the 'power of the press' to smear & influence public opinion to gain power & promote their own ideas.
Jefferson was especially adept at getting his publisher friends to smear his opponents, particularly Adams.
Me too,,and oh yeah, Thomas Jefferson too! ;o)
I just bought this book at the airport and have read about half of it. I didn't realize it was the same guy.
I can't help but think that the only place these men would be welcomed with their political views is Free Republic. Anywhere else, they would be vilified as "right-wing extremists."
Face it, THC is run by the same outfit that produces A&E and the Biography Channel, and communist dogma and propaganda dominate their programming. We all need to watch less TV, even those of us who spend an hour per year in front of the set.
I think that over on A&E they were showing that commercial during every other break, if not every break.
Christianity played a major part in America's creation. Yet today it seems as though many would wish this history forgotten altogether...
You are certainly right. This is nothing but another attempt to destroy our true history and leave our people rudderless.
For those interested in a balancing perspective try any of the books, CDs or videos at David Barton's Wallbuilders site at http://www.wallbuilders.com
Whatever he is trying to say I am always struck by how unlike most "Revolutionaries" of the day these men were. Almost all were quite well off and stood to loose vast fortunes compared to the average net worth of that time. (What algore would have called the richest 1%).Most European Revolution- Minded were paupers and only had their necks to loose as did Our Heros.
Fanatasism is rooted in doubt but enlightenment shines with true faith. (A bastardization of a R. Nieburgh quote I don't have at hand).
I watched some of it also. My attention peaked when they quoted Jefferson who said: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants alike."
At the very moment when the meaning of that quote would be clear, the signal on my TV became distorted and no-one watching would have understood the words or the reference. It would comfort me if you could view your tape and verify for me that my experience was an unfortunate coincidence and not a conspiracy to deny the legitimacy of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
I remember viewing a History channel ad which included the words "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" from the Declaration of Independence. The early versions of this ad eliminated the word "sacred". I assume that many letters were received and that the "freedom" censors were forced to correct it. Perhaps we will have to do that again.
You got that right! Also A&E, Biography, and some others.
Editor Finds No Joy In Discrediting Historian
Self-Confessed Liar-Historian, Joseph Ellis, Was Involved In Nature's Double Helix Hoax
Joe Ellis -- the Walter Mitty of "historians."
Some pertinent commentary from Amazon.com --
As a trained historian (Ph.D, 1976) whose professional life has gone far afield, occasionally I have the luxury of keeping up thru books on tape. After a couple of listens to Ellis's narrative, and knowing what we do now about the man's rather pervasive deceptions concerning his own biograpy, it came to me.
The deceiving, dissembling, two-faced Jefferson of the American Sphinx and Founding Brothers, the man of seductive words with the split-personality, isn't Jefferson at all, it's Joe Ellis. Now you can say it takes one to know one, so this doesn't necessarily get Jefferson off the hook. But it's certainly clear that the key aspects of the author's much acclaimed interpretation of Jefferson's character focus on qualities endemic to Mr. Ellis's persona as super star intellectual and teacher of the young.
You hear it said that the false identity Ellis projected to colleagues and students doesn't vitiate his scholarly works. Surely it's just the opposite. He's not writing about canal building or the impact of steam power. His chosen subject is character. His writing is filled with judgments, commendations and rebukes of a highly subjective nature. His claim to fame is his particular style of impugning Jefferson's character, character assination al la mode in todays intellectual climate.
So I say, beware. Not because I'm after Mr. Ellis. But to stand up for Jefferson as the fountain head of values that sustained, motivated and inspired dozens of generations of Americans, myself among them. We were a new people in a new land, things could be different here. The world does belong to the living generation. We are free and able to remake it in the image of our fondest hopes and dreams. Ellis and his crowd would cut us off from this our birth right. He's a damaging and dangerous mind, a "head case" working out his own problems in the guise of historical portrait painting. He projects his own faults and self-disgust on the man who surely was the spiritual father of the Revolution -- the great visionary of the possibilities of American life.
_________________________
Let the buyer beware, December 14, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from Elmwood Park, Illinois United States
Earlier this year, Joseph Ellis was suspended from his teaching position for one year without pay for blatantly lying to his students and the press about his accomplishments. While teaching a class on the Vietnam War era at Mt. Holyoke, Ellis claimed he was a hero in the war, when he actually saw no miltary involvement due to his academic appointment, and he falsely stated that he was a leader of the civil rights and anti-war movmements. You can read all about Ellis' lies by reviewing the story on the Washington Post website, or any number of other recent articles about the controversy.
It should go without saying that a history professor shouldn't be so flagrantly dishonest, but Ellis' lies are even graver because they're not confined to his personal life or even the recent past of this nation. Take "Founding Brothers," the book listed here, and the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize earlier in the year. In this book, Ellis states that DNA evidence has proven once and for all that Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children of Sally Heming, a black slave on his plantation. This is not true. Ellis severely distorted the conclusions about the DNA research published in the scientific journal. Rather than unmitakably identifying Jefferson as the father of Sally Hemings' children, the genetic evidence actually supported only the conclusion that one of twenty possible Jefferson males could have been the father. That is, there are 19 other Jefferson males besides Thomas who could have sired the Hemings children. But Ellis distorts the truth, giving readers the impression that this centuries-old controversy has been conclusively solved.
Those aren't the only points in this book where Ellis fails to give responsible historical explanations. His technique of describing the inner thoughts of founding fathers such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson often goes far beyoond the primary documents and into the shadowy, dubious realm of psychoanalysis. In an odd way, Ellis' attempts to "read" hidden psychological motives out of his characters words and actions is a throwback to the middle part of last century, when a bevy of writers came up with psychological descriptions of Abraham Lincoln's hidden desire to be a dictator....to cite a more famous example. Ellis portays Jefferson, for instance, as a man with two natures, neither one of which knew what the other is doing. This contradicts a mountain of other historical analyses by more responsible scholars such as Merrill Peterson showing that Jefferson was, in fact, consciously motivated by a consistent set of principles, and even if he sometimes failed to live by them. And Adams, far from being the disjointed and rambling speaker and thinker that Ellis portays him to be, was actually Jefferson's equal in elegance and depth of thought. Ellis has reinvented these men for his own dramatic and largely fictional purposes, and has failed to honor the principles of responsible history.
So, caveat emptor: Despite his lucid prose, Ellis frequently distorts and outrightly contradicts the facts. Spend your money on books by authors who understand the meaning of the word "truth."
Enshrined among the other flights of imaginative fantasy in Founding Brothers is Ellis' claim of "conclusive proof" in the Hemmings-Jefferson "paternity" matter. Of course, Ellis groupies are legion and these gushy nincompoops don't hestitate to wade in with their encomiums to this poseur -- proving that the gullible are everywhere and twisted popularizers with an axe to grind will always sell books.
Editor Finds No Joy In Discrediting Historian
Self-Confessed Liar-Historian, Joseph Ellis, Was Involved In Nature's Double Helix Hoax
Joe Ellis -- the Walter Mitty of "historians."
Some pertinent commentary from Amazon.com --
As a trained historian (Ph.D, 1976) whose professional life has gone far afield, occasionally I have the luxury of keeping up thru books on tape. After a couple of listens to Ellis's narrative, and knowing what we do now about the man's rather pervasive deceptions concerning his own biograpy, it came to me.
The deceiving, dissembling, two-faced Jefferson of the American Sphinx and Founding Brothers, the man of seductive words with the split-personality, isn't Jefferson at all, it's Joe Ellis. Now you can say it takes one to know one, so this doesn't necessarily get Jefferson off the hook. But it's certainly clear that the key aspects of the author's much acclaimed interpretation of Jefferson's character focus on qualities endemic to Mr. Ellis's persona as super star intellectual and teacher of the young.
You hear it said that the false identity Ellis projected to colleagues and students doesn't vitiate his scholarly works. Surely it's just the opposite. He's not writing about canal building or the impact of steam power. His chosen subject is character. His writing is filled with judgments, commendations and rebukes of a highly subjective nature. His claim to fame is his particular style of impugning Jefferson's character, character assination al la mode in todays intellectual climate.
So I say, beware. Not because I'm after Mr. Ellis. But to stand up for Jefferson as the fountain head of values that sustained, motivated and inspired dozens of generations of Americans, myself among them. We were a new people in a new land, things could be different here. The world does belong to the living generation. We are free and able to remake it in the image of our fondest hopes and dreams. Ellis and his crowd would cut us off from this our birth right. He's a damaging and dangerous mind, a "head case" working out his own problems in the guise of historical portrait painting. He projects his own faults and self-disgust on the man who surely was the spiritual father of the Revolution -- the great visionary of the possibilities of American life.
_________________________
Let the buyer beware, December 14, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from Elmwood Park, Illinois United States
Earlier this year, Joseph Ellis was suspended from his teaching position for one year without pay for blatantly lying to his students and the press about his accomplishments. While teaching a class on the Vietnam War era at Mt. Holyoke, Ellis claimed he was a hero in the war, when he actually saw no miltary involvement due to his academic appointment, and he falsely stated that he was a leader of the civil rights and anti-war movmements. You can read all about Ellis' lies by reviewing the story on the Washington Post website, or any number of other recent articles about the controversy.
It should go without saying that a history professor shouldn't be so flagrantly dishonest, but Ellis' lies are even graver because they're not confined to his personal life or even the recent past of this nation. Take "Founding Brothers," the book listed here, and the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize earlier in the year. In this book, Ellis states that DNA evidence has proven once and for all that Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children of Sally Heming, a black slave on his plantation. This is not true. Ellis severely distorted the conclusions about the DNA research published in the scientific journal. Rather than unmitakably identifying Jefferson as the father of Sally Hemings' children, the genetic evidence actually supported only the conclusion that one of twenty possible Jefferson males could have been the father. That is, there are 19 other Jefferson males besides Thomas who could have sired the Hemings children. But Ellis distorts the truth, giving readers the impression that this centuries-old controversy has been conclusively solved.
Those aren't the only points in this book where Ellis fails to give responsible historical explanations. His technique of describing the inner thoughts of founding fathers such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson often goes far beyoond the primary documents and into the shadowy, dubious realm of psychoanalysis. In an odd way, Ellis' attempts to "read" hidden psychological motives out of his characters words and actions is a throwback to the middle part of last century, when a bevy of writers came up with psychological descriptions of Abraham Lincoln's hidden desire to be a dictator....to cite a more famous example. Ellis portays Jefferson, for instance, as a man with two natures, neither one of which knew what the other is doing. This contradicts a mountain of other historical analyses by more responsible scholars such as Merrill Peterson showing that Jefferson was, in fact, consciously motivated by a consistent set of principles, and even if he sometimes failed to live by them. And Adams, far from being the disjointed and rambling speaker and thinker that Ellis portays him to be, was actually Jefferson's equal in elegance and depth of thought. Ellis has reinvented these men for his own dramatic and largely fictional purposes, and has failed to honor the principles of responsible history.
So, caveat emptor: Despite his lucid prose, Ellis frequently distorts and outrightly contradicts the facts. Spend your money on books by authors who understand the meaning of the word "truth."
Enshrined among the other flights of imaginative fantasy in Founding Brothers is Ellis' claim of "conclusive proof" in the Hemmings-Jefferson "paternity" matter. Of course, Ellis groupies are legion and these gushy nincompoops don't hestitate to wade in with their encomiums to this poseur -- proving that the gullible are everywhere and twisted popularizers with an axe to grind will always sell books.
My Grandfather taught me that there was all ways a pull in this country between those who believed in the rule of the mob, Jeffersonians, those who believed in the rule of the select, Hamiltoniians. and those that were Republicans, Madisonians.
He likened it to the pull of the Frogs and the Limeys and the forms of government that they established, always walk with the Republicans, he advised, you may have a harder row to hoe but you are supporting the Right.</P.
A book I am reading, (which is at home right now), specifically claims that the "triangle" was over-stated as a description of trade reality of the time. I believe that it claimed that the number of slave ships at the time of the revolution and after was running at about three ships per year. That would not seem to be a very great number, if true.
My condolences to you. The "History Book Club," IMO, is not the place to go for reliable history books. They also continue offer Bellesiles' Arming America and gush about how well-received it was by their "distinguished" and "scholarly" review board. This, in spite of their knowledge that it, too, is a fraud.
See post 55.
Did the series - perchance - have any mention of all the yankee slave ships flying under the union flag, or any mention that John Q. Adams refused to allow the British the right to search "slave" ships flying under the American flag after the slave trade was made illegal?
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