Fallen Founder — The Life of Aaron Burr, Nancy Isenberg

The dis-oriented author is a history buff. I have been slowly working my way through the pantheon of the Founding Fathers. I have read biographies of George Washington, Jon Adams, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Aaron Burr shows up in most of as a character in most of them Therefore, when my local library got a copy of Nancy Isenberg's  Fallen Founder, I had to check it out.

In most of my reading, Aaron Burr has been portrayed as a scoundrel. An opportunist best known for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

Isenberg's book is an attempt to make a place for Burr among the Founding Fathers.

Anytime an historian she has a unique insight into a subject that contradicts what the vast majority of historians believe, I am skeptical.

Not too long ago, I read Ron Chernow's excellent Alexander Hamilton. As a Hamilton biographer, Chernow's book painted a very unflattering picture of Burr. If you believe Chernow, Burr was ambitious, unscrupulous, and utterly without honor. Isenberg says that Chernow is wrong. In fact in her last chapter, she calls out Chernow (and several other authors) by name.

Isenberg, paints a picture of Burr as a man of his times. A scholar who rejected the religious heritage of his famous grandfather, Jonathan Edwards — the preacher of the Great Awakening.

Burr served with some distinction in the Revolutionary War. He was certainly influential in New York Republican politics and rose to national prominence as Jefferson's first vice president.

He was also a man of the enlightenment, a land speculator, an adventurer and a sexual libertine. Isenberg does an admirable job painting Burr as a man of his times, that is suggesting that his behavior was not much different than that of his contemporaries.

Burr did not participate in the Continental Congress that approved the Constitution. He was initially not even a supporter. As vice president, he was not in a position to shape policy. His later adventures brought him into conflict with Jefferson but failed in their efforts to expand American influence in Spanish territory.

Aaron Burr was a gifted man with tremendous potential — for whatever reason, he never lived up to it.

Fallen Founder gets 4 of 5 dis-oriented smileys

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