American Creation

Starred review from June 4, 2007
This subtle, brilliant examination of the period between the War of Independence and the Louisiana Purchase puts Pulitzer-winner Ellis (Founding Brothers
) among the finest of America's narrative historians. Six stories, each centering on a significant creative achievement or failure, combine to portray often flawed men and their efforts to lay the republic's foundation. Set against the extraordinary establishment of “the most liberal nation-state in the history of Western Civilization... in the most extensive and richly endowed plot of ground on the planet” are the terrible costs of victory, including the perpetuation of slavery and the cruel oppression of Native Americans. Ellis blames the founders' failures on their decision to opt for an evolutionary revolution, not a risky severance with tradition (as would happen, murderously, in France, which necessitated compromises, like retaining slavery). Despite the injustices and brutalities that resulted, Ellis argues, “this deferral strategy” was “a profound insight rooted in a realistic appraisal of how enduring social change best happens.” Ellis's lucid, illuminating and ironic prose will make this a holiday season hit.

Starred review from September 1, 2007
In a structure similar tohis Founding Brothers (2000), which examined leading American revolutionaries at critical episodes, Ellis selects certain propitious moments from the American Revolution and early republic, dramatizes them, and analyzes their crucial ramifications for Americas future. Those Ellis discusses, such as a sense of nationalism or the Founders failure to constrain slavery, emerge as contingent developments. What Ellis emphasizes in this set of incisive narratives is the possibility thathistory could have taken some very different directions and that whatoccurred is unjustifiably endowed with inevitability.Subjects include the debate preceding the Declaration of Independence; the ordeal of Valley Forge;the beginning of the party system in the 1790s; and the Louisiana Purchase. Collectively they illuminate, argues Ellis, the Founders anxieties about the constitutional nature, territorial extent, and permanence of the republic they were constructing. All the Founders had reservations about the nation-state that resulted.Their maneuvers to alter it, such as an effort by Washingtons secretary of warto change Indian policy from dispossession to accommodation, crystallize in Ellis outstanding acuity about the successes and failures of the Founders. A history bound forphenomenal popularity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)

October 29, 2007
Mayer employs the same mellow, experienced tone he successfully used recently on Empire of Blue Water and Mellon: An American Life. His familiar voice lends itself nicely to Ellis's sweeping tale of America's evolution from the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775 to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. As the story takes us through the many battles, negotiations and personality conflicts of this tumultuous quarter century-some of which have been largely forgotten in the romanticized versions of our nation's early history-listeners can settle in to Mayer's easy, silken tenor as he describes how these formative events unfolded. Ellis spends considerable time critiquing the shortsightedness and racism that prevented the founders from resolving the slavery question or dealing equitably with Native Americans. Mayer's reading keeps pace with the shifting tones of Ellis's narrative, by turns admiring and critical. Mayer's memorable rendition of Ellis's story manages to be avuncular yet brisk. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Reviews, June 4).