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

A fun read. Not real deep, but fun. Good vacation read for history buffs.

Published in 2006.

Richard Brookhiser got the idea for What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers from the questions from his 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).

Gouverneur Morris

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.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: What Would the Founders Do?

Reviewed on June 19, 2008.

Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington by Richard Brookhiser

An interesting biography, a valuable perspective

Published in 1997.

Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington is not a long biography (199 pages), but it is an interesting piece of writing. It is split into 3 areas - about one-half of the book is straight biography, about one-third is an analysis of the character of our first president and the balance is an analysis of what it means to be a founding father, how Washington measures up to that ideal and what kind of "father" he was.

The biography section is great - straightforward and written in an engaging and lively style. The character portion bogs down quite a bit and the founding father section is interesting (it asserts that he was the kind of father who was most concerned with preparing his children for life outside of his home - life on their own. He encourage other people to step into leadership roles to fill the vacuum that would be there when he walked away from the national spotlight.)

One quote, above all, highlights the best parts of Washington. It comes from Napoleon, who comments in a moment of self-pity after Waterloo, "They wanted me to be another Washington." Think of it - Washington was handed the power to be a dictator and he turned it down. In fact, this book mentions that in all of Washington's letters, he only gets truly angry at one man, and immediately writes a rough letter to a colleague who suggests that Washington make himself king when the Articles of Confederation government begins to founder.

George Washington
(1732-1799)

Brookhiser makes an interesting observation about Washington's impact on American politics by pointing out the length of time he was nationally prominent in comparison with other American leaders. For example, FDR was president for 12 years, Reagan was only politically important for the 8 years of his presidency, Eisenhower was important for the 8 years of his presidency plus his time as a general in WWII (12 years total). Lincoln - 7 years if you count from the time of the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858. Washington, in comparison was a national figure for 24 years - 17 of them as the leader of the country (you've got to count him as de facto leader of the country while he was leading the Continental Army since everybody knew that if he failed the whole Revolution would fail).

Brookhiser focuses on Washington and slavery in the character portion of the biography and, while Washington does not live up to modern standards on this issue, he was remarkably progressive for his time. He refused to sell any of his slaves since that would tear apart families. He is the only American president who freed his slaves upon his death. Washington seems to have dealt with the contradictions of "All men are created equal..." and slavery by mostly ignoring it.

So, to sum up, there are 3 sections to the book and I found the middle section to be a bit tedious.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington.

Reviewed in August of 2004.