Well-written, fascinating ideas, fantastic character sketches, not overly long. Wood does a great job explaining complex ideas. I have frequently thought about how remarkable these men were and wondered why we haven't had a group like that since then, and now I understand why.

Highly recommended

This book drew my attention immediately at Barnes and Nobles honestly simply due to the title. I have always had a fascination with the founding fathers, and this seemed like a perfect book to give an overview of most of them. This book covers Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Maddison, Hamilton, Franklin, Burr and Paine. The basic point is why are these men different? Why has history constantly been retelling these specific men’s stories? Why were these men, as opposed to others, the ones who stuck out so much in such a significant time period in history. Each chapter is dedicated to a different founding father and tries to outline what was specifically unique about each, and how each of them contributed to the overall American experiment. The book starts off by explaining the surrounding culture of the enlightenment that led to the formation of such kinds of men. The idea is that all men aspired to be “gentlemen”. Men who reached a certain point of success in life, who then no longer had to work for a living, and then could commit their time to intellectual pursuits and public service. That since America did not have the rigid class system as found in England based on hereditary, they supplemented this by a class system based on merit. That the founding Fathers were meritocratic to their core is one of the key points the author sets out to prove. The founding fathers believed that only the members of “the learned profession” should be the individuals who hold public office, since they are the only ones with the ability to devote their full attention to it, since they no longer work, and because they are the most learned of their peers. Because of this surrounding culture in the American colonies, these men were in the prime position to make an impact on the culture during and after the revolution. However, because they were able to create something unheard of in history at the time, a constitutional republic, they were in a rather ironic situation. The form of government that they fought violently for was the exact source of the demise of their kind. This new government allowed anyone, no matter where in society they were located, to become elected by their peers to public office. Thus, members of the so-called “learned profession” no longer had a monopoly on public service. Therefore, the caliber of men that the revolution produced was a direct result of the surrounding culture of the so-called “gentleman”. “In the end, nothing illustrates better the transforming power of the American Revolution, than the way its intellectual and political leaders, that remarkable group of men, contributed to their own demise.” Regarding Washington specifically, the author says, “He was an extraordinary man who made it possible for ordinary men to rule.”

A unique perspective on the Revolutionary men (including some of the lesser known) and how their personalities and beliefs shaped their politics. A good book for someone interested in either revolutionary war history or political history.

An unusual view of American history, Wood examines the personalities, conflicts and motivations behind the founding fathers, including Washington, Hamilton, Franklin and even Thomas Paine (who I generally associate with the French Revolution) and Aaron Burr. This book posits that the same kind of grandstanding, contrary bickering and partisan infighting that dominates today’s politics was alive and well in the 1700s. And Wood’s apparent main point, that the majority of the founders were elitist instead of egalitarian, and were possessed by their own bias and ego, shines though with a beacon. To be honest, it’s depressing to think that American politics hasn’t progressed at all in more than 2 centuries; and may have even regressed somewhat.

Wood offers a chapter each to a slew of household names from the time of the Revolution. It is like getting to read a very well-informed mini-biography on each. One thing I found was that the turmoil of the post revolutionary period left me in a bit of a daze. There was not only considerable diversity among the founders in terms of their macro views (if not their gender or ethnicity) and when this is combined with the rapid and significant changes the foundling nation was undergoing, it makes the whole quite a challenge to take in.

There are concepts aplenty here, and many are surprising. For those of us who have an interest in American history, but who are not history scholars, Wood's work offers a nifty primer on the issues, personalities and social/political tensions of the revolutionary and post-revolutionary era.

This is an accessible and engaging window on American history.

very accessible and broken down into essays, Very helpful at understanding the origins of the separate branches of government, the Constitution and the rationale of the various players. Enlightening

This should really be closer to 3.5 I think. It seemed like a lot of the chapters were hit and miss, and it was pretty apparent which Founders the author was personally fond of. With each chapter dedicated to a different Founding Father, some of the Founders I thought were only depicted in mediocre fashion while others were absolutely fascinating. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Thomas Paine (go figure). However, the introduction was very interesting in its recreation of late 18th century society.

Solid, but brief look into a half dozen or so of the key American founding fathers that excels in tying the Revolution to the Enlightenment period. Too often though, the individual parts never seem to tie together to make a cohesive whole other than consistently pointing out the fact that these great "indifferent" men were eventually expendable by their condescension of making a government empowered by those who before then had no control at all. A similar anthology book that centers on events instead of individuals by Joseph Ellis entitled "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" would be the one to read first, but one would certainly not waste any time spent on these tales.

This book spurs me to read more by Gordon S. Wood. These essays, taken from his other books and articles definitely explain how the founders were indeed different and how that lead them to leadership. He focuses on Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine and Aaron Burr - their contributions, the myths, and the realities. The founders all shared the belief that those of the aristocracy (well-educated gentlemen - and gentlemen had strict meanings back then, and 'disinterested' - no conflicts of interest since they didn't have to work, etc.) were the only men fit to lead. He paints a detailed picture of not only the revolution and the founding of the United States and how the democracy throughout the expanding country brought the 'common' people into politics and leadership. This change was completely opposite what the founders believed but it Wood shows how it was really the natural progression.
Especially in light of modern politics, this book is well worth reading as it sets out the original ideas about serving the public vs. the personal good.

There was a chapter dedicated to each of the Founding Fathers: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine and Aaron Burr (although I don't know for the life of me why anyone would want to dedicate a whole chapter to stupid Aaron Burr). I appreciated that Wood took a honest look at each man, without all the hero worship that you find so often in history textbooks. All their virtues and faults were discussed as well as their contributions for good or for ill.

1st read: Summer 2015
2nd read: Summer 2016

Revolutionary Characters reviews the lives of several of the United States’ founding fathers to examine how the personal strengths and ambitions of these men allowed them to play uniquely essential roles in a pivotal time. The men so detailed are George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, John Adams, and (interestingly) Aaron Burr – the latter included more for comparison’s sake, as he had many of their advantages but failed to distinguish himself for anything more than shooting Hamilton, praiseworthy as that was. Wood opens with a review of how the Founders have been alternately venerated and dismissed throughout American history, and his conclusion that Americans need the story of the Founders and the Founding to tie us together as a nation, since the United States was and remains a novel country, one based on ideas rather than blood.

Revolutionary Characters is not a collection of minihagiographies, nor is it a train of tedious, unimaginative debunkin hit pieces. Wood examines the unique lives of each of these men, assaying their strengths and the part they played. Woods sticks most closely to conventional Founding-Father writing in his opening chapter on Washington, but Washington forces the author’s hand by consciously playing the part of the noble, disinterested leader, and avoiding anything that diminish the icon he was creating of himself. Most of the founding fathers, bar Burr, were recent arrivals to the ranks of the gentry – and they compensated for their lack of breeding by cultivating themselves, both their minds and their characters. They took this especially serious as they realized they were driving the creation of something new in the world, and would be held to especially strict scrutiny. None was more serious about his study than Washington, and Woods argues that Aaron Burr’s real treason lay not in trying to create a new republic in the west, but by ignoring all convention of moral responsibility and behaving like a decadent European aristocrat – never giving any heed to how posterity might regard him, but only to the material gains he could realize and the favors he could call in. Burr’s inclusion in this book is odd, even though his vices make the others’ virtues more obvious – and so is Thomas Paine’s, for while he was a master propagandist and writer, he loved not America but revolution, never taking onto his narrow shoulders the lightest mantle of responsibility. The chapter on Thomas Jefferson examines him as the strange sphinx that he was, a man who preached liberty and maintained slaves, who idolized agrarianism but created a factory on his own plantation, a man who every iteration of American political thought appears to claim. In Madison’s chapter, we review his balancing act between the Federalists and the Republicans, his exercise in moderation overshadowed only by that of John Adams – who threaded a very narrow line between the Federalists and the Republicans, and between his rivals Jefferson and Hamilton. (Adams gets very short shrift in this book, being pushed towards the end between Paine and Burr, and addressed in a chapter called “The Relevance and Irrelevance of John Adams”.) Perhaps the most interesting chapter is “The Invention of Benjamin Franklin”, in which Woods argues that Franklin, for all his diplomatic importance, was not regarded with favor by most Americans during his life, was almost ignored in his death, and was only uplifted into the pantheon of The Founding Fathers afterwards, when an increasingly commercial class saw in him a figure worth celebrating – the self-made man. 

Woods writes that the founding fathers were not only relatively new to the gentry and accordingly obsessed with the idea of being proper Gentlemen — sophisticated, educated, cosmopolitan — but who had come to manhood at a time when they could do something truly unique. In an ordinary time they would have lived perfectly admirable lives, but the times presented them an opportunity to be extraordinary. They believed, with varying degrees of optimism and reserve (Jefferson and Adams presiding over those wings), that the creation of the United States would change not only the world, but humanity itself — that the creation of a genuine Republic would usher in a new stage of human development. That faith was tested and sometimes lost as these men grew older, as succeeding generations replaced them, as they realized that the human heart does not shrug off the stamp of Eden lost simply because governmental structures change. However short reality fell from their expectations, though, they were a fascinating bunch of men. I found the book quite interesting, and the author fair-minded in general. I dislike the inclusion of Burr, though, especially since John Adams is pushed into the rear with his company. Adams deserves better!

Excellent book if you want to know the political culture and philosophy of the late 1700s and how the individual ideas of America's founders helped to shape the country that came after forming a government. This was quite fascinating when you consider the modern sensibilities of today.

Of particular interest was the exchange of ideas and personality clashes among the founders. Funny to me was what they considered the best status in society to be an emphasis on wealth combined with unearned leisure. Apparently, the educated rich person with no experience in labor represented the ideal leader or politician.

The writing style is quite academic and somewhat over-aggrandized (the author knows a lot more references than you). Still, if you want to know more about the philosophies of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Payne, Hamilton and Burr, this is a great book.