Miracle At Philadelphia : The Story of the Constitutional Convention May - September 1787

Mrs Bowen had internalized her subject so well she could provide a narrative that virtually recreated the colonies, vocabulary and background. A face of Washington credited to Life Magazine photographer Nina Leen LIFE magazine copyright 1964, Time inc. was the only picture needed to set the stage

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for both critical scholar and general reader.

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This is a straightforward telling of the convention where the U. S. Constitution was formulated, and its subsequent ratification. It doesn't stay totally on the surface but it doesn't go into any significant depth either. It just touches on a bit of the controversies about the characters and

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motives of the players, the historical background, etc. I don't know much of this history so for me this book was an excellent introduction. From here I feel I can jump into more in-depth studies of this or that aspect, and I'll be able to keep my bearings.

Bowen does a very good job of showing how the Constitution was a compromise, the outcome of people with very different ideas coming together and hammering out a kind of middle ground.

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This is a wonderfully written history book about the constitutional convention. A lot of the stuff I either didn't know or had forgotten. In any event, I kept thinking: wow, this would make a great movie.

I did not like this book (as is perhaps clear).
The clearest, and only, statement of her thesis is the title of the book, making this a difficult book to discuss in terms of theses. While I do like how (tediously) closely this depicts the Constitutional Convention (something of continual interest to

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me), I dislike the author's writing style. There are also occasions where she seems to apologize for the Founders' distrust of democracy, their thoughts on property, etc. I acknowledge that the Founders are not infallible, and by modern standards (which is the key here) they could be considered elitist, racist, and sexist, but I do not feel they need someone to apologize for them, and I dislike when history is judged by current standards (which is the justification of the apology). This apology may perhaps be for the benefit of Bowen's reader, but it still irks me. There is also no bibliography (!), which is irritating (especially when there are anachronisms like a mention of "guillotine windows", when the guillotine was invented several years later).
Were one to ignore all of that, or have none of the same problems I have, this book is good for a step-by-step (and I do mean step-by-step) portrayal of the Constitutional Convention in a non-spectacular, but honestly not horrible, narrative.

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This is a good book. It provides an in-depth look at the constitutional convention, and then a more general look at the ratifying conventions. Anyone who is interested in how the Constitution came about should read this book. I highly recommend it.

A nation new to its independence dealing with issues internally and external, it’s nascent future hanging by a thread all comes down to 55 men from across its length and breadth to come up with a solution. In her 1966 historical review of what became known as the Constitutional Convention,

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Catherine Drinker Bowen chronicles how the future of the young United States was saved by a Miracle at Philadelphia.

Though the majority of the book focuses on the four-month long Convention, Bowen begins by setting the stage for why and how the convention came about with the ineffectual government that was the Articles of Confederation and the movement to amend them, which was led by James Madison and endorsed by George Washington by his attendance in Philadelphia. For those like myself not really versed in nitty gritty details of Convention it was interesting to learn that most of the work was done in ‘Committee of the Whole’ in which Washington while President was seated among the other delegates. The familiar highlights of the Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, and the Great Compromise are covered but in the historical flow of the debates within the Convention and decisions in-between of important elements within the Constitution. Throughout the Bowen introduces important personages and how their views remained constant or changed throughout the Convention resulting reputations being made or destroyed during and after the process of ratification. Bowen ends the book with a look at the ratification process, in particular the debates in Massachusetts and Virginia.

Covering approximately 310 pages, the book is efficient in covering the events of the Convention overall. However Bowen completely missed how the Great Compromise was voted in the Constitution, she just mentioned it. Besides that big miss within the Convention, Bowen spends chuck of the middle of the book covering a “Journey in America” that had nothing to do with the Convention but was just giving a glimpse of the nascent country that felt like filler than anything else.

Miracle at Philadelphia is a very good historical review of the Constitutional Convention that does not analyze but just reports history. Catherine Drinker Bowen does a wonderful job in juggling the various accounts of the Convention by the delegates and the official record to create very readable narrative. I highly recommend this book for those interested in this closing piece of the American Revolution.

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This book has some great day-by-day information on those pivotal four months in the summer of 1787 when the US Constitution was being created and debated. But the author's style really threw me to the point where I nearly quit on this book several times. Some of the phrasing was confusing. I'm not

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sure if it's just her style or that was how academic writing was produced in the 1960s but it was annoying. I'm glad, however, I soldiered on as again, the information was interesting and well researched.

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