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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 973.318 EAN: 9780156028721 ISBN: 0156028727 Label: Harvest Books Manufacturer: Harvest Books Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: October 20, 2003 Publisher: Harvest Books Studio: Harvest Books Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: "The majority of historians seem to suggest that the founders knew just what to do--and did it, creating a government that would endure for centuries," writes CUNY historian Carol Berkin in the introduction to A Brilliant Solution. Sitting atop the pedestals we've placed them on, these figures would be "amused" by such notions, she says, because in reality the Constitutional Convention was gripped by "a near-paranoid fear of conspiracies" and might easily have succumbed to "a collective anxiety" over its daunting task. The story of the birth of the U.S. Constitution has been told many times, perhaps best by Catherine Drinker Bowen in Miracle at Philadelphia. Berkin's rendition of these well-known events is clear and concise. It does a bit more telling than showing, but this seems to be in the service of brevity--the main text is only about 200 pages. (Another 100 pages of useful appendices follow, including the full texts of the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, plus short biographies of all the convention delegates.) Berkin is an opinionated narrator, unafraid, for instance, to call Maryland's Luther Martin "determinedly uncouth." She also points out that American government has evolved in ways that would make the founders cringe: they believed the presidency would be a ceremonial office (rather than the locus of the nation's political power) and that political parties were bad (when, in fact, they have served democracy well). Readers who want a sure-footed introduction to America's founding would do well to start here. --John J. Miller Product Description: We know--and love--the story of the American Revolution, from the Declaration of Independence to Cornwallis's defeat. But our first government was a disaster and the country was in a terrible crisis. So when a group of men traveled to Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to save a nation in danger of collapse, they had no great expectations for the meeting that would make history. But all the ideas, arguments, and compromises led to a great thing: a constitution and a government were born that have surpassed the founders' greatest hopes. Revisiting all the original documents and using her deep knowledge of eighteenth-century history and politics, Carol Berkin takes a fresh look at the men who framed the Constitution, the issues they faced, and the times they lived in. Berkin transports the reader into the hearts and minds of the founders, exposing their fears and their limited expectations of success. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Clearly superior work for general readers and US survey courses. Carol Berkin has produced for general readers and students in college surveys one of the finest and most respected piece of scholarship on this era of US History. The book is readable, it is sound in scholarship and provides a balance understanding of this most celebrated time and document in American History. John A. Braithwaite Rating: - Informative but needed better proofreadingAfter reading "Counstitutional Journal", I found Carol Berkin's approach to be well-detailed in some respects, but lacking in (just a very few) others. Sentences that were too wordy or that suffer from poor grammatical construction, such as the first sentence, last paragraph on page 154 (hardcover edition) throw the reader off the pace of the narrative. I though the chapter on the delegates was well crafted, but in addition to the Constitution, it would have been a nice ... Read More Rating: - A Brilliant Account!An engaging, enjoyable account of the workings of our "Founding Fathers" as they strive to write our Constitution. An interesting look at the personalities, compromises, maneuvering, and outcomes of this process. After reading this book, I know more about the Constitution and our government that I ever knew before. Any Social Studies teacher who misses this one is really missing out. Rating:  - Interesting, though lacking a bitThe most interesting parts of this book are the personal descriptions of the men who drafted the Constitution and the comments on the mood of the country at the time. The author makes an interesting observation: The American Revolution was not one revolution; rather, it was 13 revolutions, one for each of the colonies. However, post-1776 it became clear that a stronger form of Federal government was required. This book does a good job describing the varying opinions of state vs. federal responsibilities, ... Read More Rating: - A Reflection of the PastIn light of current events that occurred after the turn of the century, the presidential election of 2000 and the US Pentagon and World Trade Center disaster, Carol Berkin laments on those events as well as her life as a historian, and responds by reflecting on the historical past with her book, A BRILLIANT SOLUTION: INVENTING THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. She revisits the US Constitution with the present in mind, but reflects on the past with a critical eye. For example, Berkin asks one of the most frequently ... Read More |
