false 4456623 1 “While some have boasted it as a work from Heaven, others have given it a less righteous origin. I have many reasons to believe that it is the work of plain, honest men.”<br>–Robert Morris, delegate from Pennsylvania to the Constitutional Convention<br><br>From distinguished historian Richard Beeman comes a dramatic and engrossing account of the men who met in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 to design a radically new form of government. <i>Plain, Honest Men</i> takes readers behind the scenes and beyond the debate to show how the world’s most enduring constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, and, eventually, fragile consensus.<br><br>The delegates met in an atmosphere of crisis, many Americans at that time fearing that a combination of financial distress and civil unrest would doom the young nation’s experiment in liberty. When the delegates began their deliberations in May 1787, they discovered that a small cohort of men, led by James Madison, had prepared an audacious plan–revolutionary in its view of the nature of American government. The success of this bold and brilliant strategy was far from assured, and the ultimate outcome of the delegates’ labors–the creation of a frame of government that would enable America to flourish–was very different from what Madison had envisioned when he launched his grand scheme.<br><br>Beeman captures as never before the dynamic of the debate and the characters of the men who labored that summer in Philadelphia, among them James Madison, as brilliant as he was unprepossessing; the mercurial Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, arrogant, combative, but ultimately effective in shaping the language of the completed Constitution; Maryland’s Luther Martin, a pugnacious (and often inebriated) opponent of a strong national government; Roger Sherman, the straightforward Connecticut delegate who helped broker some of the key compromises of the Convention; and General George Washington, whose quiet dignity and forceful presence helped keep under control the clash of egos and words among the delegates.<br><br>Virtually all of the issues the delegates debated that summer–the extent of presidential power, the nature of federalism, and, most explosive of all, the role of slavery–have continued to provoke conflict throughout the nation’s history. <i>Plain, Honest Men</i> is a fascinating portrait of another time and place, a bold and unprecedented book about men, both grand and humble, who wrote a document that would live longer than they ever imagined. This is an indispensable work for our own time, in which debate about the Constitution’s meaning still rages. 4504871 17 3 2009 Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution total:22|5:5|4:12|3:4|2:1|1:0| 22 87 154 6 4 0 false false Tue Apr 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 07:14:32 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 07:15:13 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jun 01 07:27:08 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 01 08:07:23 -0700 2009 The challenge of writing an account of the Constitutional Convention is that so many accounts already exist. "Do we need another narrative history of the Constitutional Convention of 1787?" asks the Washington Post. While Beeman's book does not revolutionize the genre, it garners praise fo...

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Richard Beeman brings history to life in this creative retelling of the events of the Constitutional Convention and its ratification by the states. It goes more in depth than any other book I've read on the convention and it does in it a way that reads more like a story, ...more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Jul 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 07:19:59 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 05:30:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Fri Apr 24 08:37:07 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 10 14:31:28 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Nov 11 08:58:18 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 11 08:58:18 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Tue Nov 10 20:02:48 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 10 20:02:48 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Nov 09 09:46:13 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 09:46:13 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Fri Nov 06 12:05:52 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 12:05:52 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Thu Nov 05 16:48:53 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 16:48:54 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat Oct 17 22:40:03 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 18 12:47:38 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Oct 17 20:44:09 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 17 20:44:09 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Oct 06 19:25:51 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 19:27:31 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Sep 29 13:48:47 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 29 13:48:54 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Sep 26 19:44:53 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 26 19:44:58 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Sep 26 16:26:48 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 26 16:26:48 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Sep 22 09:43:29 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 09:43:29 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Sep 21 23:17:35 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 12:14:00 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Sep 20 06:39:09 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 20 06:39:09 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=4456623