FOUNDING BROTHERS: This is not so much a history of the American Revolution as a series of instructive vignettes. As such, it mostly succeeds. Some thoughts:

FB starts out kind of gassy and repetitive. Stick it out, though–the repetition fades, and the book reads very quickly, so it’s worth fighting through the occasional boring passages.

Ellis sometimes resorts to telling rather than showing. This is especially clear in his acid portrait of Thomas Jefferson, whom he views as a self-deceiving, Machiavellian, untrustworthy, brilliant but often plain wrong schemer. Now, I’m perfectly willing to believe this portrait! It happens to accord perfectly with my own view of Jefferson. But Ellis really does not make the sale, because he’s too insistent, too unwilling to trust his readers with the raw evidence, too eager to thrust his own interpretation in our faces.

That said, and speaking entirely as a laywoman on these matters, I really enjoyed FB. It refreshed my memory on some subjects (Jay’s Treaty, Madison as a Founder) and added to my knowledge on others (excellent, quick section placing Washington’s Farewell Address foreign policy in its proper, continent-oriented context).

Ellis is acutely aware of the economic and political pressures on the Founders; but he is equally alive to their philosophical ideals. This combination is extraordinarily rare. I certainly can’t speak as someone with intimate knowledge of the revolutionary generation, but as a regular old American, I have to recommend this book highly. It reads fast and fun, and it touches on subjects of which we all need frequent reminders.