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American Connections: The Founding Fathers. Networked.
American Connections: The Founding Fathers. Networked.
American Connections: The Founding Fathers. Networked.
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American Connections: The Founding Fathers. Networked.

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Using the unique approach that he has employed in his previous books, author, columnist, and television commentator James Burke shows us our connections to the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Over the two hundred-plus years that separate us, these connections are often surprising and always fascinating. Burke turns the signers from historical icons into flesh-and-blood people: Some were shady financial manipulators, most were masterful political operators, a few were good human beings, and some were great men. The network that links them to us is also peopled by all sorts, from spies and assassins to lovers and adulterers, inventors and artists. The ties may be more direct for some of us than others, but we are all linked in some way to these founders of our nation.

If you enjoyed Martin Sheen as the president on television's The West Wing, then you're connected to founder Josiah Bartlett. The connection from signer Bartlett to Sheen includes John Paul Jones; Judge William Cooper, father of James Fenimore; Sir Thomas Brisbane, governor of New South Wales; an incestuous astronomer; an itinerant math teacher; early inventors of television; and pioneering TV personality Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, the inspiration for Ramon Estevez's screen name, Martin Sheen.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 3, 2007
ISBN9780743298711
American Connections: The Founding Fathers. Networked.
Author

James Burke

James Burke is the author of several bestselling books, including Circles, American Connections, and The Knowledge Web. He is a monthly columnist at Scientific American and also serves as director, writer, and host of the television series Connections 3 on The Learning Channel. He is the founder of the James Burke Institute for Innovation in Education, whose flagship project, the Knowledge Web, an interactive website, was recently launched. He lives in London.

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a clever book, but it's not the one I was expecting when I saw the title. I figured it would be about how the founding fathers' revolutionary ideas were influenced by their reading, contacting, and otherwise hobnobbing with Enlightenment thinkers. (This would still make a good book, if someone would like to write it.) What American Connections provides instead is a shotgun smattering of historical trivia in which each chapter begins with a few sentences about one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and then 'links' them over the next two hundred years (give or take a few decades) to someone (or something) of the same name. The 'connections' are not causal or significant in any way. They're of the type in which A is linked to B because he once attended a party that was catered by C who later hired D as head chef who married E who was once the mistress of F who... and on until we get back to someone with the same name as A. What makes this kind of a fun read despite its lack of any real relevance to the founding fathers is that, as I said, it's clever, and Burke's snarky prose makes it seem even more clever than it otherwise is.

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American Connections - James Burke

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