To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders

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The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders Two time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bernard Bailyn has distilled a lifetime of study into this brilliant illumination of the ideas and world of the Founding Fathers. In five succinct essays he reveals the origins, depth, and global impact of their extraordinary creativity. The opening essay illuminates the central importance of America's provincialism to the formation of a truly original political system. In the chapters following, he explores the ambiguities and achievements of Jefferson's career, Benjamin Franklin's changing image and supple diplomacy, the circumstances and impact of the Federalist Papers, and the continuing influence of American constitutional thought throughout the Atlantic world. To Begin the World Anew enlivens our appreciation of how America came to be and deepens our understanding of the men who created it.

Reviews

A group of unimpeachable assessments . . . A gem of a book, rich in understanding . . . A thoroughly urbane account of the provincial wellsprings of our nations life. The New York Times

Seldom have . . . the American Founders . . . been celebrated with such depth and sophistication. The New York Review of Books

In the great flood of books about the American Revolution . . . To Begin the World Anew occupies a place all its own. A closely argued exploration. The Washington Post Book World

One of Americas most discerning historians. His thinking is subtle. His style is forceful. . . . Throughout he retains a sense of wonder that those men in a clump of distant British provinces could have wrought a political system, a view of the world, that is so imaginative and enduring. Los Angeles Times

Deep, creative, brilliant, and provocative. In a word: dazzling. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Author Bio

Bernard Bailyn did his undergraduate work at Williams College and his graduate work at Harvard, where he is currently Adams University Professor Emeritus and director of the International Seminar on the Atlantic World. His previous books include The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century; Education in the Forming of American Society; Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750-1776; The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, which received the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prizes in 1968; The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, which won the 1975 National Book Award for History; Voyagers to the West, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987; and Faces of Revolution- Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence.