Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Fallen Founder:
1. How does Nancy Isenberg characterize Aaron Burr, his personality and character? How is her characterization different than what you previously believed about Burr?
2. What in this biography do you find to admire about Aaron Burr?
3. After reading Isenberg's account, was the aftermath of the 1800 election between Jefferson and Burr fair—particularly Jefferson's shutting Burr out of his cabinet and the subsequent choice of Madison as his future running mate?
4. What led up to the famous Hamilton-Burr duel? How much did you know previously about the episode? How does Isenberg challenge received wisdom regarding that fateful day in Weehawken, New Jersey? What still is left unknown?
5. "Everything we think we know about Aaron Burr is untrue," says Isenberg. What are some of those untruths? Why, according to the author, has Burr become one of history's favorite whipping boys? How culpable are historians in perpetrating Burr's scurrilous.
6. In what way does Isenberg see Aaron Burr as an early feminist? By the same token, in what way did Burr represent, through his actions and reputation, the era's masculine ideals?
7. What does Isenberg means when she insists that "the sexualized image of Burr was principally a function of political rivalry"?
8. In what way, according to Isenberg, was the nation "simply not as virtue-bound as we would like to imagine"?
9. Do you think Isenberg presents an accurate picture of Burr? Or does her desire to rehabilitate his reputation color her historical objectivity?
10. Have you read other accounts of Aaron Burr—books about him (Burr by Gore Vidal) or books in which he figures prominently? If so, how does Isenberg's depiction of Burr hold up? Is her account credible?
11. Has this book altered your view of Aaron Burr? What have you learned about the era's social and political culture? Have you come away supporting Nancy Isenberg's hypothesis—that Burr has been treated unfairly by historians and that his place in history deserves a rehabilitation?
12. Do you see any parallels between the political climate of Burr's era and our own?
(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)