Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr
A controversial challenge to the works of Ron Chernow and David McCullough

Lin-Manuel Miranda's play "Hamilton" has reignited interest in the founding fathers; and it features Aaron Burr among its vibrant cast of characters. With Fallen Founder, Nancy Isenberg plumbs rare and obscure sources to shed new light on everyone's favorite founding villain. The Aaron Burr whom we meet through Isenberg's eye-opening biography is a feminist, an Enlightenment figure on par with Jefferson, a patriot, and-most importantly-a man with powerful enemies in an age of vitriolic political fighting. Revealing the gritty reality of eighteenth-century America, Fallen Founder is the authoritative restoration of a figure who ran afoul of history and a much-needed antidote to the hagiography of the revolutionary era.
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Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr
A controversial challenge to the works of Ron Chernow and David McCullough

Lin-Manuel Miranda's play "Hamilton" has reignited interest in the founding fathers; and it features Aaron Burr among its vibrant cast of characters. With Fallen Founder, Nancy Isenberg plumbs rare and obscure sources to shed new light on everyone's favorite founding villain. The Aaron Burr whom we meet through Isenberg's eye-opening biography is a feminist, an Enlightenment figure on par with Jefferson, a patriot, and-most importantly-a man with powerful enemies in an age of vitriolic political fighting. Revealing the gritty reality of eighteenth-century America, Fallen Founder is the authoritative restoration of a figure who ran afoul of history and a much-needed antidote to the hagiography of the revolutionary era.
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Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr

Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr

by Nancy Isenberg

Narrated by Scott Brick

Unabridged — 19 hours, 53 minutes

Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr

Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr

by Nancy Isenberg

Narrated by Scott Brick

Unabridged — 19 hours, 53 minutes

Audiobook (Digital)

$30.00
(Not eligible for purchase using B&N Audiobooks Subscription credits)

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Overview

A controversial challenge to the works of Ron Chernow and David McCullough

Lin-Manuel Miranda's play "Hamilton" has reignited interest in the founding fathers; and it features Aaron Burr among its vibrant cast of characters. With Fallen Founder, Nancy Isenberg plumbs rare and obscure sources to shed new light on everyone's favorite founding villain. The Aaron Burr whom we meet through Isenberg's eye-opening biography is a feminist, an Enlightenment figure on par with Jefferson, a patriot, and-most importantly-a man with powerful enemies in an age of vitriolic political fighting. Revealing the gritty reality of eighteenth-century America, Fallen Founder is the authoritative restoration of a figure who ran afoul of history and a much-needed antidote to the hagiography of the revolutionary era.

Editorial Reviews

Founding Father, Revolutionary War hero, vice president, businessman, political strategist, adventurer, alleged murderer and traitor: The public personas of Aaron Burr (1756-1836) are almost too numerous to assess. In recent biographies, Ron Chernow, Joseph Ellis, and Gordon Wood have all disparaged him. Nancy Isenberg's Fallen Founder uses primary documents to restore the image of this complex man whose story has been mainly told to us through the words of his enemies. A major biography of a most vilified man.

Washington Post

Isenberg's meticulous biography reveals a gifted lawyer, politician and orator who championed civility in government and even feminist ideals, in a political climate that bears a marked resemblance to our own.

Boston Globe

[A] sterling biography.

New York Times Book Review

Full of insight and new research. It is an important and engaging account.

Jill Lepore

Isenberg’s call for a better, less fetishistic history of the founding fathers is eloquent and inspiring. And her study of Burr is full of insight and new research. It is an important and engaging account.
— The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Does Burr belong in the pantheon of founding fathers? Or is he, as historians have asserted ever since he fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel, a faux founder who happened to be in the right place at the right time? Was he really the enigmatic villain, the political schemer who lacked any moral core, the sexual pervert, the cherubic-faced slanderer so beloved of popular imagination? This striking new biography by Isenberg (Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America) argues that Burr was, indeed, the real thing, a founder "at the center of nation building" and a "capable leader in New York political circles." Interestingly, if controversially, Isenberg believes Burr was "the only founder to embrace feminism," the only one who "adhered to the ideal that reason should transcend party differences." Far from being an empty vessel, she says, Burr defended freedom of speech, wanted to expand suffrage and was a proponent of equal rights. Burr was not without his faults, she concludes, but then, none of the other founders was entirely angelic, either, and his actions must be viewed in the context of his political times. As this important book reminds us, America's founders behaved like ordinary human beings even when they were performing their extraordinary deeds. Illus. (May 14)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

From the Publisher

"Full of insight and new research. An important and engaging account."—New York Times Book Review

"A sterling biography."—Boston Globe

"Isenberg offers justice to a maligned man."—Wall Street Journal

"Isenberg's meticulous biography reveals a gifted lawyer, politician, and orator who championed civility in government and even feminist ideals, in a political climate that bears a marked resemblance to our own."—Washington Post

OCT/NOV 07 - AudioFile

This is a book of revisionist history, well delivered and highly interesting. Isenberg’s position is that Aaron Burr was far from being a scoundrel and traitor, as many of his contemporaries believed, because of the ranting of his political enemies. Burr was, rather, honorable to a fault, independent minded, highly intelligent, creative, and deeply talented in both politics and law—a thoroughly decent man. Golden Voice Scott Brick delivers the goods with the easy élan that has made him so popular as an audiobook narrator. His young-sounding voice is well paced and sometimes carries a hint of tension when the text demands it. He never bobbles pronunciation, even with the many foreign names. The entire package delivers. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID: 2940170145508
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Publication date: 05/10/2007
Edition description: Unabridged
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