Where do I begin? This work of overly flamboyant vocabulary, 4 page paragraphs, and mind-numbing overcomplexity is the best example to date of three pounds of candy in a 100 pound bag.
I commend Joseph J. Ellis for the 20 years he probably spent poring over a dictionary to fill a story that could be told in a mere 40 pages, with so many adjectives, so much pointless information, and the most annoyingly extreme degree of detail I have ever experienced in a literary work. Let us also not forget to recognize so many school districts for assigning 248 pages (more with notes) of absolute TORTURE as a "summer reading assignment" for the vast majority of A.P. U.S. history students across the country. Not to exaggerate, but I think the suicide rate in children between sixteen and eighteen years of age may experience a spike as the summer draws to a close, and children around the nation begin to pick up this work of excruciating pain, hoping to finish it before the school year begins.
If you are a hermit, despot, or just a fat, mean old man, who wants to be left alone for an afternoon of reading on the beach, please tape the cover of "founding brothers" to the back of your book of choice. When those annoying teenagers spot a glimpse of that beige spine with the presidential portraits, you can be sure they will keep a distance of at least 3 miles.
It's true: somehow, be it to maintain the poseur reputation of a well-read intellectual, some critics will actually claim to ENJOY this novel. I guess in the end, this is a free country (a country whose founding is described in this book in the most boring and tasteless fashion imaginable), but a word of kindly advice to the author of this piece: seeing as the educational system seems to favor your books for their summer reading assignments, in the future, please; just stick to short stories.