American Connections The Founding Fathers. Networked.

Preface The trouble with iconic heroes like the Signers of the Declaration of Independence (note the reverential uppercase) is that they're like stuffed exhibits in museum cases -- passed by thousands of children sleepwalking their way through an educational tour, who never visit the signers again. Most of us don't remember their names. Heroes also become imbued with virtues we wish on them -- such characteristics as honesty, selflessness, and courage in the face of danger. And while it is true that what the signers did was dangerous and could have got them strung up, not all were honest and few if any were selfless. Nearly half of them would much have preferred some kind of compromise with the British. One of them even repudiated his signature. And of course the Brits regarded them all as what would today be called "terrorists." One reason for this book is to remind readers briefly of the signers' flesh-and-blood characters: Some were crooks, some had dysfunctional families, some were involved in financial shenanigans, some were masters at political backstabbing, many were egomaniacs, and a few were just good people. The other reason for the book is to connect these men to the reader and the modern world. Historical figures are always a surprisingly short distance away in time. You may have heard your grandfather speak of his grandfather, who talked about his grandfather. That's when the signers lived. They're close. And not so different from us. The past feels like a foreign country only because of all those wigs and breeches and strange behavior. But think: In the 1960s men had shoulder-length hair and wore flared pants. In the 1950s, before contra- ceptive pills, unmarried motherhood was a disgrace. Behind their contemporary fashions and social rules the signers were essentially much like us. Of course marvels like electricity and airplanes and computers would be incomprehensible to them. But if you were transported to the eighteenth century, would you know how to send a letter or even how to write it? How to prepare a quill pen and a sheet of parchment? And how would you dry the ink? What was the equivalent of an envelope? It's a mistake to think that people in the past were different or stupid just because we don't think they could handle our modern technology. Given time, even a caveman could learn to use a computer. And, by the way, the Upper Paleolithic was only five hundred grandfathers away. I've tried to link the signers even more directly to us with an approach I've been using for thirty years, which has recently become known as "six degrees of separation." In this way each signer triggers a chain of events that links him to the modern world through a series of connections: Someone he knew knew someone who knew someone, and so on. These trails through history show how incredibly diverse are the ties that connect us to each other, back and forward in time and space. The network linking the signers and their modern counterparts is peopled by spies, assassins, cuckolds, fraudsters, murderers, the incestuous, bomb-throwers, pillmakers, inventors, artists, musicians, statesmen, royalty, explorers, infanticides, transvestites, counterfeiters, con men, doctors, lovers, heroes, scientists, clergymen, and a host of others. And if you look far enough, you, too, are linked to this network. You are linked to the signers. We all are. It may be a few more than six connections, but not that many more. In a medium other than print I might have been able to offer each reader (user?) the means to make his own connections so as to become part of the narrative. Perhaps at some point in the future this book will take that form and you'll be able to make the connections yourself. Meantime, next best (and half-proving the point), I've connected each signer to someone or something bearing his name in the modern world. Why write a book like this? Well, writing beats reaBurke, James is the author of 'American Connections The Founding Fathers. Networked.', published 2007 under ISBN 9780743282260 and ISBN 0743282264.