About this item
This definitive biography of the revolutionary era villain overturns every myth and image we have of him The narrative of Americaxs founding is filled with godlike geniusesxFranklin Washington Adams Jeffersonxversus the villainous Aaron Burr Generations have been told Burr was a betrayerxof Hamilton of his country of those who had nobler ideas All untrue He did not turn on Hamilton rather the politically aggressive Hamilton was preoccupied with Burr and subverted Burrxs career at every turn for more than a decade through outright lies and slanderous letters In Fallen Founder Nancy Isenberg portrays the founders as they all really were and proves that Burr was no less a patriot and no less a principled thinker than those who debased him He was an inspired politician who promoted decency at a moment when factionalism and ugly party politics were coalescing He was a genuine hero of the Revolution as much an Enlightenment figure as Jefferson and a feminist generations ahead of his time A brilliant orator and lawyer he was New Yorkxs attorney general a senator and vice president Denounced as a man of extreme tastes he in fact pursued a moderate course and his political assassination was accomplished by rivals who feared his power and who promoted the notion of his sexual perversions Fallen Founder is an antidote to the worshipful biographies far too prevalent in the histories of the revolutionary era Burrxs story returns us to reality to the cunning politicians our nationxs founders really were and to a world of political maneuvering cutthroat politicking and media slander that is stunningly modern.
About the Author
Nancy Isenberg is the author of Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in Biography. She is the coauthor, with Andrew Burstein, of Madison and Jefferson (2010) and The Problem of Democracy (2019) . She is the T. Harry Williams Professor of American History at LSU. Isenberg is the winner of the 2016 Walter & Lillian Lowenfels Criticism Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and was #4 on the 2016 Politico 50 list. She lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Charlottesville, Virginia.
