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Title: A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government by Garry Wills ISBN: 0-684-87026-6 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 12 February, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.81 (48 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Not the best book on the topic by a longshot
Comment: Once again, people are sharply divided on a book that can be seen to be primarily about history, or about current politics. Sometimes this is inevitable, sometimes it is misguided. Here, it hinges on whether Wills has his history right, and is drawing the correct conclusions about current events from this history. The very simple answer to this is that Wills' view of the intent of the Founders is shared by few professional historians. It is clear that the left-leaning Wills sought to justify government activism and counter appeals to Constitutional restraint in writing this book. That is not an attack; it is simply obvious, period. That in itself does not make this a bad book. What does is that Wills is stretching historical interpretation well past the breaking point in general, and to the point of embarassment on many occasions. Had he not gone on from there to press home matters relating to modern-day politics, this could have been considered a work of scholarship, albeit a poor one. It isn't, and even those who agree with Wills don't treat it that way. Do they, honestly? This is a polemic, dressed up as history by a normally respected author. Look at it this way: if someone really wants to learn what the Founders intended, and what might be learned from it and applied to our current political framework, why wouldn't that person read Bailyn or Wood or "Novus Ordo Seclorum" or some other respected work that isn't the least bit interested in today's politics, and then just draw one's own conclusions?
Rating: 1
Summary: Not history, more like fantasy
Comment: I don't know where Wills studied history, but he didn't study American History. He has no clue as to what the Constitution says or of the founding fathers reasoning for the document they created. States WERE sovereign. Prior to the Constitution, each state acted as independent nations. The Second Amendment IS an individual right. If you have any doubt as to what the Second Amendment means, in 1991, Roy Copperud, a retired professor of journalism at the University of Southern California and the author of "American Usage and Style: The Consensus", panel member of the American Heritage Dictionary, and and is considered an expert by Merriam Webster's Usage Dictionary, analyzed the wording of the Second Amendment. In his findings, he stated "The sentence does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms, nor does it state or imply possession of the right elsewhere or by others than the people; it simply makes a positive statement with respect to a right of the people. The right to keep and bear arms is not said by the amendment to depend on the existence of a militia. No condition is stated or implied as to the relation of the right to keep and bear arms and to the necessity of a well-regulated militia as requisite to the security of a free state. The right to keep and bear arms is deemed unconditional by the entire sentence. The right is assumed to exist and to be unconditional. To the best of my knowledge, there has been no change in the meaning of words or in usage that would affect the meaning of the amendment. If it were written today, it might be put: 'Since a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.'"
Rating: 5
Summary: A Very Interesting History
Comment: What I have never understood is how small the "government is bad" group thinks the federal government should be. To take it to the extreme there would be no federal or state governments and it would be the wild west, every man for himself. I have always taken the view that the American government is an extension of each citizen and can be a force for positive change. Even when I try to look at it from the point of view of many that think there should be no or almost no government, I do not see the massive damage that government is supposed to do. With all this said I was very interested in this authors book and was predisposed to follow his arguments.
What I found was a nice argument against the current group of anti government "the true meaning of the founding fathers" non-stop bashing of what the federal government does. Lets face it, there has always been and there probably always will be dislike and distrust of the government, after all the faceless government imposes rules on the average citizen and takes tax money to do so. What this book tries to do is look at the anti government argument and really see if that is what the founding fathers were thinking. I thought it was a very interesting and insightful look at the American history as it relates to the creation of the federal system that we have today. To be fair I was ready to believe the arguments in the book before I read them and I have not done much reading on the founding fathers so my comments here may be skewed. Read the book and make up your own mind.
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Title: Explaining America: The Federalist by Garry Wills, Garry Willis ISBN: 0140298398 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Indepedence by Garry Wills ISBN: 0618257764 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 14 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG: THE WORDS THAT REMADE AMERICA by Garry Wills ISBN: 0671867423 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 12 June, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: "Negro President" : Jefferson and the Slave Power by Garry Wills ISBN: 0618343989 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Under God : Religion and American Politics by Garry Wills ISBN: 0671747460 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 15 November, 1991 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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