Burr by Gore Vidal
New York: Random House, 1973The incorrigible Aaron Burr. Few Americans played such important roles at the dawn of our nation. Is it possible that this hero of the Revolutionary War who served as Vice-president under Thomas Jefferson is the same man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and stood accused of treason for plotting to split the nation in order to form his own empire? Burr is a fascinating, independent and unpredictable man. Through the contradictions and complexity of his life, we are witness to the historic events and remarkable personalities that shaped our nation.
Gore Vidal's Burr is written as a memoir completed towards the end of Burr's life in 1836. In the novel, portions of the memoir are also written by Burr's confidant, a young journalist named Charlie Schuyler who is one of only two fictional characters in the book. The memoirs are also fictional, but the historic characters and the events in which they participate are real.
As the infamous duel with Alexander Hamilton made clear, our founding fathers were far from unified in their vision for our new nation. These were strong personalities with deeply held convictions. There were bitter rivalries and political intrigue. Vidal's realistic portrayal of early American history provides his readers with fascinating insights into the people and events that established this country.Comment
While a bit more difficult than Vidal's Lincoln, Aaron Burr's career was a long one spanning many of the most important periods in early American history. As such, students are exposed to many of the highlights of the Revolutionary War as well as early efforts at western expansion, the continued tensions with Britain and France and the administrations of our early presidents as well as the difficult decisions they faced.
Reading Level: Young adult
Interest Level: Adult/Young adult
428 pagesSupports the following Instructional Objectives:
Organize and evaluate the significant events of the American Revolution
Chart the strategies of the different military factions in the Revolution
Know how the Constitution structured a system of democracy for the United States
Excerpt
From the beginning Colonel Burr was a successful lawyer. With his first partner, William T. Broome, he began to make and spend the first of several fortunes. As a lawyer he was - is - meticulous. yet he has a certain contempt for the whole business. "The law," he likes to say, "is simply whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained."
Burr's rivalry with Hamilton began in those days. It was inevitable. Both were heroes, both were ambitious, both were lawyers. Of the two Hamilton was considered to be the more profound philosophically as well as the more long-winded, with a tendency to undo his own brief by taking it past the point of successful advocacy.
Burr was the more effective in a court-room because his mind was swifter than Hamilton's; also, of an entire generation of public men, Burr was free of cant: he never moralized unless to demonstrate a paradox. AS a result the passionate believers thought him evil on the ground that the man who refuses to preach Goodness must be filled with Bad.Historical Fiction and Idaho U.S. History Curriculum
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