Joseph J. Ellis writes biographies that I love reading. His ability to both make the men he writes about feel relevant to the modern age and to analyze both their legacy and character is, to me, remarkable. He brings these men out of history, and turns them from marble to flesh. It is fitting, th...
Joseph Ellis' "His Excellency: George Washington" is a well done brief biography of George Washington. Washington, surely, could be the subject of one of those massive bios, such as Chernow's "Alexander Hamilton" or "Titan" or Nasaw's "Andrew Carnegie" or Cannadine's "Mellon." On the other hand, ...
What an exciting book! Ellis conducts you right into the political chaos of the early republic, when the revolutionary fraternity was splintering in feuds, faction and duels (which are preferable to purges, terrors, and nights of long knives): The very idea of a legitimate opposition did not yet ...
I can't say that I understand some of the negative reviews about this book here on this site. If Ellis had been calling the man a power-hungry hypocrite, then I could quite possibly commiserate. But this book is not an attempt to besmirch Jefferson as a villian; nor is it an uncritical celebrat...