What readers think of Founding Brothers, plus links to write your own review.

words can not describe the horror!

I would just like to tell all people who are interested in reading one of Joseph J. Ellis's novels, to hault that line of thought right now. The reason this man continues to write is because we contnue to buy his work. Any person who attests to have liked this book is either a history teacher who is getting some kind of discount off office supplies for every book their students buy, or are individuals who are truly interested in editing such fine pieces of literature as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary or the Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Please heed my words, for once Joseph gets his writing in your mind, everyone suffers.

oh man! this book is boring . i am not from the u.s ,so it was really hard for me to read this book . i can't belive that my teacher made me read this book. i am 15 and i could have done many things in the summer, but my teacher gives me this stupid assignment and i had to read it . hey i didn't know that real history would be this boring. i think fiction is good. hey i had to look up like everyword in the dictionary. i just came to this country 2 years ago . this is harder than i tought. i should probably get out of my ap class. this is boring . this is boring than talking to old people about life. hey pray to GOD to help you finish this book!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. While many of us should know the historical "facts" involved in the founding and shaping of the nation, few have been exposed to the "story behind the story". Ellis does a wonderful job of providing an insight as to what was going on behind the scenes during this formative period. He illuminates the human aspects of the founding of the country that are often overlooked in many history classes on the subject. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the motivation behind the decisions made during the late 18th century that have shaped our present government.

While the events discussed in Founding Brothers were definitely significant during the actual time period, it is hard to believe that any reader of this book will find it interesting at all. This book was overly analytical and quite tedious at times. However, the author does deserve some credit. Ellis’s ability to stretch the story beyond all human endurance to read it and stay interested is phenomenal.
   In spite of the pure dullness of Founding Brothers, the reader cannot doubt that the book is crammed with facts which are completely relevant and important in understanding the late 1790’s through the early 1800’s. Ellis is extremely well-versed in writing books about that time period. His American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson received the National Book Award in 1996, and Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams is regarded as one of the best books on our second president.

im in honors history and this book is horribly boring. not fun.

I have read this book for a class, and i do enjoy history but have always had trouble when it came to reading, anything. This book actually did a good job of keeping me into the book. For example, in the 1st chapter, Ellis goes into deatail of the Duel, he goes into so much detail from what is happening to why iy is happening. I had to read this as an assignment for class but i had several friends that rented the movie, and they lacked the details, that were happening, and their thoughts in words.

Excellent book.

Houston, TX 21 yr old

I'm a history teacher that assigns this "book of death" to all the pitiful wretches that have written about their trials here. I am here to offer a defense.

First of all, I've read enough books about history to know that, while there are dry spots in Mr. Ellis's work (especially in the chapter dealing with Hamilton's compromise with Madison, in which a lot of Hamilton's economic plan is discussed), the work as a whole is very insightful. The "dullness" that a lot of students seem to be referring to is what others would call "depth" and "substance." Mr. Ellis doesn't jump from topic to topic in an attempt to satiate painfully short attention spans. Rather, he takes a few events and discusses them thoroughly (well, thoroughly relative to most history textbooks these days). The brevity of the book obviously limits its thoroughness, but I suppose that it would have only made the students wail all the more if the book had been 600 pages, as many works are, rather than the 250-ish pages that it is.

In his use of these stories, Mr. Ellis makes a convincing case for an overall view of American history, which I have found very helpful, both in teaching my class and in my own continued investigations into American history, and find to be a useful jumping-off point at the beginning of the year. So my response, in an attempt to balance the glut of negativity about this book on this message board, is to offer that perhaps the poor reception by students has less to do with the book itself and more to do with the fact that they were REQUIRED to read it.