A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign Reviews

• The first partisan election

  
  By A2ZHB7E544QLLQ on 2007-10-10
  If one thinks back just a few years to the election of 2000 and finds it unusual to a nail-biting degree, read Edward Larson's terrific new book, "A Magnificent Catastrophe" to see what a real cliffhanger can be. The election of 1800, the first truly partisan national election in the United States, is brilliantly captured by Larson and his sense of drama is impeccable.
  
  The cast of characters are many, including the tempestuous incumbent president, John Adams, his bitter rival (the Republican Thomas Jefferson) and others who figured prominently in the outcome. Alexander Hamilton was chief among them, plotting along the way to boost Federalist candidates, as well as his own national prominence. Aaron Burr, whose presence was both a boon and a disadvantage, appears well into things late in the book. He connives as much as Hamilton and it is a fitting set-up to their duel a few years later. Of all these players, Larson's book really centers mostly on Adams...being the current president, his administration was on the line and he had the most to lose. Yet, with these personalities that the author captures so vividly, it is the process of the election that makes this book stand out. From the maneuvering by Republicans in New York in the spring of 1800, Larson takes the reader through each and every phase of the "campaign"...and campaign it really did become as President Adams, Harry Truman-style when faced with an uphill election battle, made a swing through several states that would be in play later in the year.
  
  What is amazing and ironic is the parallel between that year and today's elections. Religion played an important part in 1800 with Jefferson being branded as an "infidel". In a quote that practically leaps off the page, Massachusetts Federalist Congressman Harrison Otis, warning of Aaron Burr's possible winning the presidency, said of Burr, he "would start a foreign war to consolidate his power". (shades of the twenty-first century!)
  
  As the balloting continued through the fall of 1800, both sides took stock. The antiquated system of the day (which was modified with the passage of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804) struggled along but the December outcome only clouded the results further and Larson's description of the deadlock, broken only two weeks before the inauguration date, is one of the many high points of the book. It may be that this was the only presidential election where a small state like Delaware could have had such a large say in deciding the election.
  
  I highly recommend "A Magnificent Catastrophe" for its' thoroughness, historical accuracy and crisp narrative. Edward Larson has provided readers with a wonderful account of that particular time, the politics associated with it and the similitudes to today's issues and political motivations. In a chilling portent of things to come, Thomas Jefferson commented that the primary threat of government corruption lay in an all-powerful presidency immune from the checks and balances of congressional and state authority. Those sentiments ring true as we find things were not all that different two hundred years ago than they are today.
  
  

• 1800 Election for the 1900th Time

  
  By AG4JQDQCPQ9YH on 2007-10-15
  The election of 1800 - again, and yet again. Few topics in American history have been treated so excessively as the election of 1800. It has suspense, drama and is historically unique. The founders eschewed political partisanship. They felt anyone who ran for President must have the national interest at heart. Therefore, the highest vote-getter became President, while the second-highest became vice-president. (This was before the Twelfth Amendment, which was adopted in part because of the 1800 election.) Imagine Al Gore as George Bush's vice-president (or vice-versa) and you can see why the amendment was necessary.
  Larson, who wrote a superfluous and curiously lacuna-ridden book on evolution, has now turned to this well-worn subject. In the last 10 years, the 1800 election has been treated repeatedly: another reviewer wrote of Professor Ackerman's recent book, that at first glance one may feel like saying "not another book on the election of 1800." That was a couple of books before Larson's. Recent "Election of 1800" titles include "America Afire," "The Revolution of 1800," "The Failure of the Founding Fathers," "Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power," "Adams v. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800," "Jefferson's Second Revolution," "From Bullets to Ballots," etc., etc. I personally recommend Ackerman's book, "The Failure of the Founding Fathers," which is more thoughtful than most and raises some fascinating constitutional questions. Larson has notes but no bibliography. One wonders how much he owes to the other authors who have already treated this subject - often in more interesting and provocative ways. This book exudes opportunism.
  
  

• All Politics is Local: 1800 version

  
  By A2446QJGH8MTIC on 2007-10-08
  The contentious election of 1800 in which Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams gave form to the political life of the early Nineteenth Century and has been much told: how the emerging parties differed on issues such as the balance between security and liberty (the Alien and Sedition Acts), the foreign policy debates between those who leaned toward England and those who favored France in the continental wars that followed the French Revolution, the expansion of the army for defense, and of the taxes that paid for it, and finally the Electoral College tie between Jefferson and Burr and the political maneuvering in the House of Representatives to elect the next President.
  
  While the issues in the election are not ignored, Larson concentrates on the conduct of the election in cities and states across the nation. America was closely divided between the two major parties --- Adams had edged Jefferson by 71 to 68 Electoral College votes in 1796 --- and the broad historical issues played out through the local tactical and strategic choices made by local participants well beyond the control of the candidates themselves
  
  Larson traces the election in each of the battleground states as they moved through the electoral year. He shows how tactical decisions made by Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton in selecting candidates for the state legislature from the Federalist stronghold of New York City (which had voted 60% federalist in the prior election) resulted in a sweep of the city for the Republican candidates, providing enough votes to give Republican control of the state legislature and, therefore, of the electors elected by the state legislature to cast New York's votes for Jefferson. Although Adams garnered more electoral votes in 1800 than in 1796 from the other states of the Union, the switch of New York was determinative, and all because of the choice of candidates for the State Legislature.
  
  But other states could have swung the election the other way: especially Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina. Even a few votes from Virginia had it continued to elect electors by district instedad of statewide, would have sufficed to reelect Adams. Larson brings us into the maneuvering in each state, and in the process illuminates the much different process by which Presidents were elected in the early days of the Republic.
  
  He also brings us inside the ranks of the Federalist Party and to the consultations by which some (Alexander Hamilton among them) hoped to make Charles Pinckney, the Federalist candidate for Vice President, the President in place of Adams. Before the Twelfth Amendment, when electors did not cast votes separately for president and Vice President, all that was necessary was for some southern electors to vote for Pinckney but not Adams and Pinckney would finish on top. Even with New York in the Republican column, that remained a distinct possibility until finally the South Carolina legislature chose the state's electors.
  
  Readers seeking a history of the broad trends and ideas in the election of 1800 should look elsewhere. But readers interested in seeing how the original structure of the Electoral College affected elections, and how local political actions determined national consequences will find "A Magnificent Catastrophe" a worthwhile read.
  
  
  

• An interesting read on an amazing election

  
  By A3HBBR5XWOZ10K on 2007-09-07
  Larson's book is an excellent look at an amazing election. It's important to realize that partisanship was happening way back when and that the games politicians play have always been sordid. His account of Hamilton's schemes, Adams' tantrums and Burr's conniving all have resonance today -- except the names are different.
  Two criticisms: First, sometimes he swamps you with detail. And, two, he should have drawn clearer parallels with the modern day.
  
  

• Clash Of The Titans: The Election Of 1800

  
  By A2DECMCGKASEV1 on 2008-02-24
  Recent American history has seen some fairly contested, highly partisan Presidential elections. In 1992 we saw the most successful run by a third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt in 1916. In 1996, we saw Republicans fresh off an historic take-over of Congress convinced they could defeat a sitting President. In 2004, the race between Bush and Kerry brought up memories of a war that had ended almost thirty years in the past. And, of course, 2000 saw the closest and most controversial Presidential election since Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden.
  
  But nothing that we've experienced can compare to the first partisan Presidential election in American history, the election of 1800.
  
  In A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign, Edward Larson tells the story of a campaign that changed the way we elect Presidents and changed the course of American history.
  
  Prior to 1800, the United States had not had a contested Presidential election. George Washington ran essentially unopposed in 1788 and 1792, and could have done the same in 1796 if he had chosen to. In the campaign of 1796, the partisan alignments that Washington had resisted and naively hoped would not come about were still forming. There were two factions, for sure, but formal political parties were still a few years away. The seeds for what would happen for years later, though, were planted when the Electoral College selected a President (Adams) and Vice-President (Jefferson) from opposing factions.
  
  By the time the election of 1800 approached, those factions had developed into true political parties. The Federalists dominated New England and much of the North, the Republicans the South. Up for play, and all important to the election of 1800 were mid-Atlantic states like Pennsylvania.
  
  In a relatively short, easy to read 276 pages, Larson takes the reader form one part of the country to the other as the two parties, and the factions within them, struggle to navigate the sometimes byzantine way in which President's were picked in the late 18th century.
  
  In addition to Adams and Jefferson, much time is spent on the role played by two bitter political rivals who would eventually end up on a dueling field overlooking Manhattan Island -- Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. In 1800, Hamilton and Burr battled in the even-then rough and tumble world of New York City politics. The New York legislative elections would determine who won that state's electoral votes and Burr put together a strategy to win the city, and the state, from Hamilton. Hamilton, meanwhile, was fighting two enemies; the Republicans and John Adams who he believed had betrayed Federalist Party principles during his time in office. By October, Hamilton would openly break with Adams and back Vice-Presidential candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for President, thus guaranteeing a Federalist loss and the end of the Federalist Party.
  
  One of the more extraordinary things about the election was the fact that neither Jefferson nor his supporters seemed to realize that Burr, through the guarantees he had exacted from them, had virtually guaranteed that the two men would end up tied in the Electoral College and the election would be thrown to the Federalist dominated House of Representative. In the end, after thirty-six ballot, the House choose Jefferson and American history was set on a new course.
  
  Larson's book is an excellent read for anyone interested in electoral politics and American history.
  
  
• Further serendipity
  By A1P4O5TC4AWN5I on 2008-01-07
  When I purchased this book I mistakenly ordered another on much the same subject. The first book "American Creation" dealt with the formation of the country and its revolutionary separation from Britain up to the election campaign between Adams and Jefferson. This book "A Magnificent Catastrophe" deals almost exclusively with the Adams versus Jefferson election of 1800. It is a thorough grounding in the complexities of American politics against the background of vast distances and poor communications which applied in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the United States. What is made clear is that each state was determined to go it alone in the way that the President was to be elected. The author also discusses how people changed their views on electoral procedures if they thought that their party could get a political advantage from a different electoral system. The author shows how party politics began in the United States and it is a useful contrast to learn that the Republicans were the (almost)radicals in 1800. The author also shows the importance of religion or the lack of it in American elections -- something which is still aparently with us today. However, the coverage is probably too detailed in many ways with too many quotes from the newspapers of the day, many of which, were openly partisan or more or less official organs of the parties they favoured. What is clear is that the papers were printing mostly opinion and facts sometimes we hard to come by, no doubt because of the difficulty of communications. An interesting revelation was that the candidates sought to alter the views of others by lengthy rebuttals and complex arguments. I know the subject is complex and difficult but I have marked the book down a bit because the endless quotations, for me at least, got a bit tedious. A valuable book nonetheless. An interesting sub-topic was the description of the way that Washington, DC began. As I live in Canberra, Australia and my city is partly based on the pioneering that went on in the District of Columbia, I was interested to be able to compare the differences and similarities.
  
  
• Must rate this book a 'Less Than Magnificent Catastrophe'
  By A3TCRAC8RU61DF on 2008-03-23
  Having read with interest dozens of books about this period in American history, my view is this work falls sadly short. To the point, it's about the author's views being portrayed as facts. On page 6 'America, however, never enjoyed abler representation in a foreign capital.' 'Never' certainly covers a lot of ground... Page 9 Larson definitively states Abigail Adams was Jefferson's 'itellectual equal'. Really??? She was certainly a savvy woman and a good letter writer, but Jefferson's equal? Page 11 casually relates that Jefferson's father had instilled in him a 'craving for material possessions'. Is having an appreciation for finer things the same as craving material possessions? This is nearly a 300 page book which, if read in its entirety, will keep you on your guard for the questionable and gratuitous.
  
  
• A magnificent way to learn about history
  By A1UQNX8S78JU0G on 2007-10-06
  Who knew history could be so much fun? Pulitzer prize winning author Edward Larson brings us all the intrigue, drama and backstabbing suspense of the 1800 presidential election that led to our two party system, and which Thomas Jefferson called, "America's second revolution." Larson is a meticulous scholar whose research brings to life this interesting and precarious time in U.S. history. Narrator John Dossett is an accomplished audiobook narrator and his experience shows. He lends the perfect amount of drama to the reading of a historical non fiction text that could be dry with the wrong narrator. As read by Dossett, A Magnificent Catastrophe proves to be a magnificent way to learn about U.S. history.
  -Jessica Teel
  
  
• An Election by Superdelegates
  By APTVNT7U6RZC3 on 2008-04-19
  This was, given the consensus for Washington to be President, our first national election. Its result re-oriented the country in its promised direction and solidified the two party system.
  
  Larson tells the saga of this 16 month pre-media electoral slog. The Constitution had not anticipated political parties. It called for electors (today, our vestigal electoral college) to cast the presidential ballots and left each state to determine its own election rules. The parties studied the rules, did the math, and attempted to manipulate rules, events and perceptions to change the outcome before and after the fact.
  
  The story is reported with facts and quotes. By nature of its content, there is a lot of technical detail. Slavery, which gives the south disproportionate electoral influence due to the Constitution's specified population count, is not an issue for the participants, and perhaps not the rank and file free male voter either. It faintly emerges when the Republicans need to show their "toughness" in response to a slave revolt.
  
  The author does a good job of cataloging, state by state, the electioneering. The actual votings, by the electors and by the the House of Representatives, could have had a more detailed and interpretive treatment.
  
  After having recently read Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr I am sensitive to the portrayal of Burr. Larson, like others, refers to Burr's negative qualities (such as extreme ambition or untrustworthiness) without evidence. There is mention of his potential profiting from founding a NY bank, but other banks, oriented towards Hamilton, favored the American aristocrats and essentially cut out the average person in lending decisions. In the absence of hard data showing that that he profited, should he not be celebrated for this? (Did Andrew Jackson accomplish this much?)
  
  The treatment of Hamilton differs from that in Chernov's Alexander Hamilton. To Larson he is an extremist schemer, to Chernov, an achiever, albeit an contentious one. John Adams is portrayed as learning too late that he has been used by this party's extremists. The detail in the treatment here, defines the limitations of drama, such as the recent HBO series on John Adams, in portraying this time.
  
  To me, the book does not have a fitting title. What was catastrophic about this election? Chaos, tumult or even pandemonium are better nouns than "catastrophe" which implies ruin or destruction. One of its participants calls it a catastrophe, but was destroyed?
  
  
  
  
  
• Founding Fathers revealed in riveting new audiobook
  By A2K3RS5QFZBWNB on 2007-10-07
  John Adams and Thomas Jefferson faced off in the election of 1800, and listeners will be riveted to Edward J. Larson's account of their political rivalry. Larson weaves an engaging work of non fiction that illuminates the distinct personalities behind each political figure, shedding light on our country's first presidential election and its impact on US politics even today. This is no dry, political text. Listeners will be glued to their CD players until the very end. The book succeeds in audiobook format due to the entertaining writing style, and very accomplished and entertaining voice of narrator John Dossett. Dossett makes history come alive. This audiobook will appeal to history buffs, high school and college students, as well as the average person looking for an enjoyable and educational audiobook.
  
  
• Excellent
  By AKTMGNY99TFG5 on 2007-11-20
  This book is a well written story about the events leading up to the election of 1800. I learned a LOT from this that I never learned in high school nor college.
  
  The author does a great job describing the situation after the revolutionary war, and how after 11 years under the constitution, the two big parties started to emerge (Federalists and Republicans).
  
  This is not a boring, dry history book. The author went to great pains to make this an entertaining and captivating story. I couldn't put this book down!
  
  
• An interesting read on a well-worn topic
  By A3MJ7LX6YFLAUW on 2007-12-09
  Edward Larson's book on the election of 1800 doesn't focus as much on how Thomas Jefferson prevailed over Aaron Burr in the House of Representatives, but more on how partisan politics came out in the open during a presidential election.
  
  Larson covers a lot of the minutiae of how people like Hamilton and Burr tried to marshal political support in each state and how each state decided to choose its slate of electors. There's a lot of backroom dealing in 1800.
  
  The author seems to favor Jefferson's side and portrays the 3rd President as a somewhat noble figure staying outside of the fray, while incumbent president Adams is made out to be more of a reactionary and obsessed on maintaining power. If you've read Chernow's book on Hamilton or McCullough's book on John Adams, you may have a different view on those two men.
  
  
• The more things change
  By A135Y35RRGHY3G on 2008-01-01
  What's the line? The more things change, the more they remain the same. So true. Jefferson is attacked because he is not religious enough. The Federalists stir up fear because of a foreign threat, namely the fear of France exporting its revolution, not just wine. But there is lots of info for a reader unfamilar with this period: how GW died; the fact that Jefferson did not go to the funeral; and how Aaron Burr invented modern politics with his campaign in NYC to get the New York legislature to go Republican. In the end, what GW and the founders envisoned----wise men making a group consensus for a President---turned out to be a dream, and a misunderstanding of human nature., which is odd because they got human nature so right with the rest of the Constitution. This is a short book and well worth your time.
  
  
• An outstanding work of history
  By A2F6N60Z96CAJI on 2008-01-07
  Reading A MAGNIFICENT CATASTROPHE is disquieting. This is not to suggest that Edward Larson's depiction of the presidential election of 1800 is less than an outstanding work of history. Published in the heat of the 2008 presidential campaign, it reminds us how little the political landscape has changed in the 52 presidential campaigns that have been conducted since 1800. Granted, the world is a far different place now than it was when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams contested for the presidency in 1800. But the cryptic observation that "the more things change the more they stay the same" comes to mind repeatedly as the events of 1800 are detailed in this well-researched and informative work.
  
  America was a young nation in 1800. The Constitution that is revered today had been in place for slightly more than a decade. George Washington, a man who could have been king of the United States, had guided the country for most of its life. All of this changed in 1796 when John Adams became president, and his political enemy, Thomas Jefferson, became vice president. American politics had not yet experienced the birth of political parties, and the Electoral College elected a president and vice president separately.
  
  Jefferson and Adams reflected ideologies that divided Americans. Adams believed in a strong central government that would place power in the hands of a powerful president. Jefferson supported a far more populist government that trusted popular rule and feared an elite power structure. Just as in the contemporary political scene, it was the extreme supporters of both philosophies that shifted and shaped policy. The political disputes would turn founding fathers from friends to enemies. Tacticians Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr would become such bitter foes that their differences would be settled by a duel.
  
  While Americans today have become accustomed to a never-ending political campaign, the election of 1800 was in fact a year-long struggle for reasons unrelated to those that cause modern elections to be conducted on a perpetual basis. In 1800 each state was free to establish its own Election Day when they wished. Actual elections were held from April to October. As each state established how electors would vote for president, each candidate's camp schemed to work behind the scenes to obtain advantage for their candidate. Efforts were undertaken to change the manner in which presidential electors were chosen. Should this issue sound familiar, it is not unlike the effort being undertaken today to allow California and other states to bring a halt to winner-take-all votes.
  
  Familiar themes found in the news today permeate the pages of A MAGNIFICENT CATASTROPHE. From the Alien and Sedition Acts that sought to stifle political dissent, to fears of terrorism and foreign wars, to the role of religion in government, and finally to attempts at vote suppression, those issues remain as weighty today as in 1800. Larson's account of the debate over them strike themes familiar to contemporary political reporting.
  
  In the end, Thomas Jefferson was elected president neither by the voters nor by the Electoral College. Instead, the House of Representatives took 35 ballots over seven days in February 1800 to finally elect Jefferson and Burr. The campaign and election were so disastrous that Congress quickly changed the process by enacting the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution requiring separate votes for the two offices.
  
  "Those who cannot learn from the past are condemned to repeat it" wrote George Santayana. A MAGNIFICENT CATASTROPHE provides readers with many important insights into the first steps taken by our modern republic. Just as the formative years of a child often shape future life, the election of 1800 can provide us with a broader and more profound understanding of America and the issues confronted by our nation in 2008. It is fortunate that we have great teachers such as Edward Larson to assist us in recognizing the lessons to be learned from past political campaigns and their historical significance as we observe the 2008 campaign.
  
  --- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman
  
  
• Expanded classroom lecture
  By A1A8NFZBNE6MDI on 2008-04-22
  As explained in the notes, the author took a classroom lecture and expanded it for a book. Not a great read, but the information on how the press started to influence elections and how we drifted to the practice of electing both President/VP in one vote is educational (use to be the second highest vote getter became VP). I had the priviledge of meeting the author and he is very entertaining speaker.
  Though we disagree on our opinions of Alex Hamilton (I like Alex)..the book talks less than flattering of Hamilton, so if you want the rest of the story on him, I suggest reading the Ron Chernow book.
  
  
• Good history of the Presidential election of 1800
  By AQQLWCMRNDFGI on 2008-09-04
  Think that 2000 featured a strange presidential election? Then, you might be interested in this book. The election of 1800 is termed, in the book's title, "A Magnificent Catastrophe." Because of a mistaken in how the Constitution stated who would be elected president, Thomas Jefferson and his vice-presidential "partner," Aaron Burr, were tied after the electoral votes were counted. Burr being Burr, he did not withdraw and allowed Congressional voting to take place (a churl, as always).
  
  On the other hand, the High Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, so despised John Adams (the sitting Federalist President), that they worked to undermine his candidacy. In other words, what a story!
  
  This book does a nice job of describing the dynamics of the election of 1800. It is not as detailed a work as one might have expected from the likes of Joseph Ellis or David McCullough. Nonetheless, it is a useful work and provides a solid examination of the subterranean plotting by partisan leaders in the election.
  
  
  
• Educational, Riveting and Personal
  By ADRGCLZEST7QC on 2007-11-06
  I am not a big fan or reader of American history but this book tells an very interesting time in history and a turning point for our nation. Pulling from letters, journals and newspapers, Larson guides the reader through an event that has no paraell. Suffice to say, in one year we see issues on free speech, the treatment of taxes and the usual state versus federal rights. Learning the genesis of this was fascinating and on top of it all, you have an election.
  
  
• An Experimental Republic
  By A2MYKB0GE6OD8Q on 2008-07-09
  In 1800, the Republic of the U.S. was still very much a work in progress. That wonderful blueprint for government, the U.S. Constitution, was only 12 years old and its applications to the realities of governance were still being worked out. In short the U.S. in 1800 was still in its experimental and formative stage.
  
  This admirable book is focused on the 1800 Presidential election for two very good reasons. First the election was the first truly contested election in the U.S. involving two competing aggregates of political ideologies that were the first nascent political parties in America. Second it was this election that more or less established the operational pattern for presidential elections that has held down to this day. Indeed as, Larson describes it, this election had a very modern feel to it.
  
  This book is especially good about the complexities of both the electoral process and the so-called Federalist and Republican factions. The Federalist had the advantage in that John Adams, the incumbent President, was a member. This advantage was mitigated by the fact that Adams was seen as too pragmatic (i.e. compromising) to be willing to fully buy into the Federalist ideology as advocated by the so-called `high federalists'. Brilliant, but erratic Alexander Hamilton, was the chief ideologue of the high federalists. He undermined the Federalist chance of victory by working behind the scenes to replace Adams with a more ideologically sound candidate. Oddly enough the Republicans were also faced with internal dissention. At this time there were actually two Republican Parties, the Virginia Party whose chief ideologue was Thomas Jefferson and the New York Republican Party whose principal was the very pragmatic (and ambitious) Aaron Burr. James Madison, the actual founder of the Republican Party was very much in the shadow of Jefferson. So the odds were pretty even between the two parties with the Federalists generally being stronger in the North East and the cities and the Republicans in the South and West and among rural voters.
  
  How this election played itself out and the astonishingly modern maneuvering by both sides makes for fascinating reading. A word to the wise, however, modern as this election was in many ways, it is a mistake to follow Larson's example and try to affiliate Federalists and Republicans to modern political parties. In spites of its modern trappings the Presidential Election of 1800 occurred in a vastly different country than the one we live in today.
  
  
  
• OK Book about a fascinating topic
  By A252KC3NYOUQ1W on 2008-08-31
  Larson's in depth account of this time is a little too in depth and often repetitious in his ping-ponging accounts of "the issues" as seen by the Jacobins and the Federalists. It makes for an extremely slow read, no matter how interesting the material.
  
  It would make a great textbook about the time, but given the the never ending boring details, I can't recommend it as a casual read about the period. There are more engaging books about the same.
  
  As to the content of the book itself, it is very well done. I also think while so much emphasis is placed on the local political climate of the time, Larson's coverage of one of the most compelling topics of the time, namely Burr's incredible coup in NYC, is somewhat shallow.
  
  My 3 stars for this book is not so much a poor recommendation as it a warning to anyone not interested in reading a book with such copious and more than necessary detail about an incredible time. I also do not like books filled with quote after quote, which Mr. Larsen does too much for my liking; a similar criticism I have for McCullough's later books. These are not my favorite types of books; and I must also add the proviso, that having read so much about this era, the "boring" presentation of this book to me may have augmented by my prior readings.
  
  
  
• Small Rip in corner...but other that good condition!
  By A1QCCK7VBFQGVM on 2007-12-24
  I got this for my dad for Christmas and was kind of disappointed when I saw a small rip in the front cover...but it did come quickly!
  
  

• American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic (Vintage)
• The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800
• What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States)
• The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
• The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War