A Magnificent Catastrophe Analysis

Superior Essays
Running head: A MAGNIFICENT CATASTROPHE 1

A Magnificent Catastrophe
Fahad Aljohani
California State University San Marcos A Magnificent Catastrophe
In one of his most concise and “compelling read” works, A Magnificent Catastrophe, Edward J. Larson provides us with a fresh access to reality by drawing an apt reference to history. The tone of the writer in the 335 pages of the book cannot be mistaken. The writer puts up a spirited effort to calm nerves and appeal to the intelligence of his readers on contemporary issues by illustrating that most of the problems and fears that confront the society today are indeed not new. The writer uses Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and John Adams as his key characters in a rare artisanship
…show more content…
Some sections of A Magnificent Catastrophe almost seem fictitious as the writer provides a contrasting physique of Adams and Jefferson as the writer sets the stage (albeit virtual) for a bruising battle, for that is what the political duel seems to be in the book. Adams is presented as a blunt, fat, short but hot-tempered individual, but his adversary, Jefferson, is a tall, Virginia aristocrat, unperturbed by the violent politics. In several instances in the book, Jefferson viciously attacks his political opponents, but the striking thing in all instances in which he does so is that it is an indirect attack, ostensibly to uphold his reserved personality. For many readers, Larson seems to be addressing the character of Jefferson in the 1800 election with the personality of contemporary Washington politicians. This is an artistic masterpiece only available to him. The writer proceeds to spice up the political rivalry with the policy preferences of the adversaries. At some point, he pits the two rival factions as microcosms teeming with proxies out to do the bidding for their surrogates in the disguise of regional powers. This is the reason he provides details of the effect that Adams and the Federalists were inclined towards France, while the …show more content…
Larson manages to illustrate the loaded messages in a gripping narrative complete with satire and foreshadowing. This book is a single piece in which the writer is as consummate as he possibly could be keeping the reader turning pages, indulged in a somewhat intimate relationship with the gods of literature. However, it is only when you get to the last page that you realize Larson does not actually provide the historical narrative and contrast that he promises at the beginning of the book. From whichever perspective, one cannot fail to see from where Larson stands, that, the problems of the past are the problems of today. Anybody with a thirst for a literary masterpiece that can stand the test of time will want to read this

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Joy Luck Club

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the text “ How to read literature like a professor” Five chapter help represent the story joy luck club. Chapter one tells that the main chapter quest/goal tells how it led up by telling important things about the characters . This applies to the joy luck club because, in the joy luck club, the first backstory talks about how the whole joy luck club started. During the sino japanese war and all the chaos it started, suyuan, jing mei late-mother, made the joy luck club to bring some joy during the devastated time. It tells that suyuan is a hardworking person and also have a competitive personality.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With respect to the federal Constitution, the Jeffersonian Republicans are usually characterized as strict constructionists who were opposed to the broad constructionism of the Federalists. To what extent was this characterization of the two parties accurate during the presidencies of Jefferson and Madison? As war wages on in Europe, economic and political influence is spreading to America. As the President’s, Jefferson and Madison are challenged by upholding their country’s honor and putting their beliefs into action.…

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Over the course of our country’s history there have been several characters that revolutionized modern day America. These characters are now only publicized in museums with little to no intellect on how important they are to our country. Although their history is taught in schools and history lectures about their success, one can think, what made these founders so special? The personality of these founders aided in their decisions on what was important to make America better. In the intensely written work Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, Gordon S. Wood analyzes eight founding fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, George Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine and Aaron Burr.…

    • 1345 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Professor Alan Taylor’s topic in the first page of the essay is how the founding fathers, like many Americans at the time, clashed on many issues. He uses combative diction to not only suggest, but to force readers to understand that the parties clashed. He denounced the “mythic” misconception of the unity of the founding fathers to “violent” “enemies” in order to show his readers how cutthroat politics were back then. The way he would quote people would only include their party affiliation, which further deepens the gorge that divides the parties at the time.…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Will Ferguson 419 Essay

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages

    No matter how many times one reads a piece of literature, one will have a different perspective of any writing in comparison to other readers and the author themself. To get an enhanced understanding of the book 419, I noted Will Ferguson’s perspectives of his novel and his motives for writing the novel by watching his interview with Steve Paikin. I know truly appreciate not only the quality, but the quantity of the work and planning Ferguson put into this project. As solely a reader of the novel, we fail to acknowledge the author’s reasons for specific character details and plotlines. After watching his interview, readers understand his motives behind certain choices he made to enhance the authenticity of the novel.…

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Erik Larson is argued to have a difficult time creating realistic details for a book about a time period he could only research about. In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson uses brilliantly constructed figurative language in order to insightfully display his interpretation of the story (entailing the events of the Chicago World Fair and the serial killer H. H. Holmes) and realistically and informatively describe the details of people, places, and events in the novel. The first figurative language tool that will be addressed is the simile. The first simile that is used to describe one of the main "characters" of Larson’s novel, Holmes, is “As he moved through the station, the glances of young women fell around him like wind-blown petals”…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An individual is powerless against the larger power of society, ultimately it is something they will succumb to and face. In The Book Thief the story follows Liesel and her life in Nazi Germany as she encounters several victims and abusers of power. The poem The next war is a soldiers poem during describing his experience with death and fatality. Finally in an interview The Sins of the Father is both an interview that gives us insight into the psyche and trauma of Martin Burnham. Power demonstrative in the texts through a series of techniques that reflect the victims and users of power.…

    • 1186 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jack N. Rakove Summary

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Jack N. Rakove, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (Pearson, 1990). Reviewed by Hampton N. Roy, September 5, 2017. Jack N. Rakove is currently the W.R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies, as well as a professor of political science at Stanford University. He is the author of six books and has won numerous awards, most notable the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History for his work questioning the validity of originalism, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (Knopf, 1996). However, this review is of one of his lesser known works, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (Pearson, 1990), which begins with the birth of Madison in 1751 on his father’s plantation near Port…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Founding Brothers Summary

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In regards to foreign affairs, Adams decisions in keeping the “XYZ…

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Few events loom as large within the consciousness of the United States as the American Revolution. It has been endless debated and mythologized from the moment of its occurrence. By the same token, here are few topics as studied as the American Revolution. This seminal event has been examined and deliberated by generations of historians to the point there are few historiographies as extensive as that of the American Revolution. This has led to endless biographies of the founding fathers, multitudinous examinations of each battle, as well, as economic, political and Atlantic based histories of the event.…

    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “Historical events are often the result of a variety of contributing factors.” In Founding Brothers, Author Joseph Ellis shows us that this truly was the case in early years of our Nation. Ellis uses his vast knowledge of the people and era to read between the lines of six famous historical events. The six chapters each relate an event that showed how fragile our fathers found the nation and how fervently they worked at keeping the union intact. He encourages us not to think back from the time where we stand, but where our founding fathers stood, taking in the various influences and forces that they faced when making their decisions.…

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Devil in the White City, the events of the World’s Fair in Chicago are recounted in stunning clarity, hearing about the architects involved and their own personal journeys. From the beginning as well, the readers are informed about H. H. Holmes, the serial killer who resided at the Fair’s doorstep. Since the killer’s identity is already spoiled for the audience, Erik Larson is forced to resort to other means of captivating his readers and holding them in suspense. Throughout Larson’s novel, he uses simple literary tactics to achieve his goals. While detailing the architects’ journeys to building the Fair, Larson uses less suspense in the beginning, as nothing is in need of it, but as he keeps writing and the architects’ lives begin…

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Carol Berkin is a professor of History at Baruch College, and she teaches early American and women’s history. A BRILLIANT SOLUTION: Inventing the American Constitution is a book that involves the independence of United States of America. The years after the Rebellion were the greatest years and the most terrible periods. Even if the nation is eminent their newborn liberty, they did not have a strong central administration that would connect them mutually (Berkin, 2002).…

    • 1121 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    It is coated in safety, and of a period of time that was well received, but benith that is a dreadful sense of a complete lack of morality and of understanding. These characters are not to be repeated, but to be a portrait of the past. As one writer said “Thus, one observes two disparate ways of thinking at work. Do Americans want a return to the ideal past, or do they want to be forward looking.” The idyllic picture of the past is alluring, but shallow and cheap.…

    • 2053 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Can you imagine our world destroyed to its bare core? Can you think of ways and reasons why society would allow the world to fall into apocalyptic times? Much more like the famous quote by Albert Einstein, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones” (22). In the book The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the reader is placed in the aftermath of a catastrophic war that left the world in ruins such as in an apocalyptic manner. The book depicts the ordeal of a father and son trying to recuperate what these disastrous events took from them.…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays