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Title: Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the American Revolution by John E. Ferling ISBN: 0-19-513409-5 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.13 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Incendiaries of Freedom
Comment: So many books have already been published about the American Revolution as well as about Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. Ferling brilliantly analyzes all three towering figures within a specific historical context, to be sure, but also in terms of each other. He creates and then explores a matrix of juxtapositions between and among them, comparing and contrasting all three in relation to each other but also in relation to the historical context on which each had such a profound impact. What Ferling has created is both a history book of panoramic scope and a trilogy of interrelated (and to some extent interdependent) biographies. It is so well-written that I often thought I was reading a novel.
Since childhood, I have viewed certain books as "magic carpets." I include Ferling's book among them. It transported me back more than 200 years and deposited me amidst the brave and brilliant men who were about to set the world "ablaze" with their incendiary passion for an independence soon to be declared and eventually to be achieved. Ferling guides his reader through this highly combustible process. Of special interest to me is Ferling's presentation of Adams (characterized as the "Bulwark" of the American Revolution), a founding father not always mentioned in the same breath with Washington and Jefferson. With all due respect to Jefferson's accomplishments, Ferling concludes the final chapter with this observation: "To the end, he was incapable of accepting the reality of his culpability in the perpetuation and expansion of African slavery and the danger it now posed to the achievements of the American Revolution." And then in the Epilogue, Ferling asserts that the Revolutionary generation "was indeed fortunate to have had Washington and Adams as its greatest stewards and shepherds."
If you have a keen interest in the War for Independence and, especially, in those who led the new nation through and beyond that war, there is this magic carpet I know about....
Rating: 5
Summary: Awesome and such a pleasure - Am Hist made FUN
Comment: Ferling writes in a very enjoyable and easy style, and in a comparative way that captivates. He skips from each former President to the next during similar periods and experiences in each's life - a style that I found a pleasure to read...Surely a tenured history professor and professional scholar knows better than an "avid reader." At any rate, I really enjoyed this book and strongly recommend it. One comes away with plenty of knowledge on our first three Presidents, but after reading only one book. Most importantly, the book is an accurate and thrilling look into the lives of three people who shaped our nation during its conception and infancy.
Rating: 3
Summary: An easy, relaxing read.
Comment: This brief (300 pages) history of the American Revolution, as seen through the actions of Adams, Jefferson, and Washington, is a thoroughly enjoyable, pool side type of read. Granted, it is a superficial history of the Revolution, but provides an interesting perspective of the motivations, interactions, and rather different personalities of the three founding fathers. Mr. Ferling's work does seem to be at times rather colored in favor of Washington and Adams, which might be expected, as he has written biographies of our first and second presidents. He makes some rather interesting comments about Jefferson's personality; comments which come close to a psychoanalysis of our third president. Overall, if you are searching for a history of the revolution, this work is not for you. If you are ready for a relaxing narrative of the revolution, and the actions of these three individuals, you will not be disappointed.
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Title: A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic by John E. Ferling ISBN: 0195159241 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: John Adams: A Life by John Ferling, John Ferling ISBN: 0805045767 Publisher: Owl Books (NY) Pub. Date: 01 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: James Madison: (The American Presidents Series) by Garry Wills, Gary Wills ISBN: 0805069054 Publisher: Times Books Pub. Date: 02 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Freedom Just Around the Corner : A New American History: 1585-1828 by Walter A. McDougall ISBN: 0060197897 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 28 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn ISBN: 0674443020 Publisher: Belknap Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $19.50 |
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