Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this book because it seemed a good digest of our country's Founders. It mixes humor and sometimes a little irreverence in telling the story of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence. That said, though, it has limited usefulness. First, it should be noted that the authors -- a husband and wife team -- are not historians. That's important, because you should not assume that they did any original research or carefully checked their facts. This is not a work of historical scholarship. The authors are both journalists and writers of various genres. A big drawback to the book is that it lacks any footnotes or endnotes. They do have a bibliography at the end, but this serves no other purpose than being a potential reading list. Thus, the book makes many claims without any citation, so readers should proceed carefully. A rather serious case of this is in the chapter on John Hancock. The book reads: "Hancock reportedly announced that he signed his name in large letters so that King George could read his signature without spectacles." A little research reveals that this is really the stuff of legend. For starters, the signed Declaration of Independence was never intended to be read by King George III, or to ever even leave the country. It was to be the official Declaration of Independence for the new country. It was not even addressed to King George. This was the only signed copy by the 56 delegates in the Continental Congress. It was an announcement to the country and the world that the colonies had declared independence from Britain and the reasons for this. In fact, the Continental Congress went to great lengths throughout the Revolutionary War to keep the Declaration OUT of the hands of the British. I was already aware of this legend about Hancock's signing the Declaration for the benefit of King George, but was curious about why the authors included this, so I wrote them. Their response was: "The episode is cited in numerous books and articles dating from the 1800s and forward, but no one has ever provided any documented proof (someone's diary, a letter, etc.). This is why we specifically used the phrasing 'reportedly' in the telling of that particular story." This is very weak justification and devoid of any proof. Moreover, the nuanced word "reportedly" is completely lost upon the average reader, who will take this at face value. You can be sure that the book has helped propagate this myth, to the consternation of historians and students and teachers of history. I wrote the authors back to this effect and said that they could just have easily written, "Reportedly, George Washington cut down a cherry tree, and upon being confronted by his father, confessed, "I cannot tell a lie." I urged them to clarify this on their website and to correct any future editions of the book. I never heard back from them. There are other claims that I have issues with (such as "...Congress sneakily backdated some official records to show that all fifty-six men had signed on July 4, 1776," again with no citation), but the one about Hancock is serious enough that any anecdote should not be taken at face value. Any "new" thing the reader learns should be suspect and researched before repeating it as fact. That's why I think the book is of limited usefulness. This is not a question of historical interpretation; it's about principles of scholarship.