I wanted to like this book. However, I felt that the author pushed his premise too hard not giving an even handed look at America’s past. It’s always easy to lay your preconceived ideas over the facts of history. Certainly, the founders made mistakes from where we sit today, but that’s hindsight. The author criticizes Madison for the compromises he had to make to get the constitution approved by the states. They were not all on the same page any more that all our states agree today.
The author’s treatment of present history is much more balanced, and people can make up their own minds because they can see history in action. I can’t agree with everything he says about the villainous military-industrial complex, but he makes some valid points.
When I comes to slavery, I think he did the early abolitionists a serious injustice. They cared a great deal about the plight of the slaves and the fact that there were people speaking out about the abuses of slavery made the changes during the Civil War possible.
I found the book interesting to read even though I couldn’t agree with many of his conclusions about the early days of America. The fact that we have a country at all rather than a group of states is due to the fact that the founders were able to make compromises. We may not like them in retrospect, but much of what goes on today is not wonderful and compromise is always necessary.
I received this book from Dutton for this review.
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