American Creation

American Creation: Triumps and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic is Joseph Ellis' account of early America and the founding fathers.

Fast Facts

1. Author: Joseph J Ellis
2. Genre: History, Non-Fiction
3. Publication Date: October, 2007
4. Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
5. Pages: 304
6. ISBN 9780307263698

Plot Synopsis

American Creation is an historical account of the founding of the United States. Ellis focuses on the individuals, the Founding Fathers, their strengths, flaws and the impact they had on the evolution of the nation.

Critical Reception

• "Ellis, who teaches history at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, gives the founders their full due but insists that they made serious mistakes—they failed to end slavery, "or at least to adopt a gradual emancipation scheme that put it on the road to extinction," and they failed "to implement a just and generous settlement with the Native Americans"—and that blind luck gave them a mighty assist." - Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
• "If…I were to note the familiar contradictions of the birth of the nation—chiefly the triumph of liberty, but only for propertied white men—and say that Ellis has written an entertaining account of, as his subtitle has it, the "triumphs and tragedies" of the founding, there would not be much new for me to say, or for you to read, either in this review or in Ellis's book." - Jon Meacham, New York Times

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