Joseph J. Ellis

"The prizewinning author of Founding Brothers and American Sphinx now gives us the unexpected story--brilliantly told--of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. The triumph of the American Revolution was neither an ideological nor political guarantee that the colonies would relinquish their independence and accept the creation of a federal...

Drawing from the newly catalogued Washington papers at the University of Virginia, the author paints a full portrait of Washington's life and career in the context of eighteenth-century America, richly detailing his private life and illustrating the ways in which it influenced his public persona. When Washington died in 1799, Ellis tells us, he was eulogized as "first in the hearts of his countrymen." Since then, however, his image has been chiseled...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of "Founding Brothers" and "His Excellency" brings America's preeminent first couple to life in a moving and illuminating narrative that sweeps through the American Revolution and the republic's tenuous early years.

The story of history is a ceaseless conversation between past and present, and in American Dialogue Joseph J. Ellis focuses the conversation on the often-asked question "What would the Founding Fathers think?" He examines four of our most seminal historical figures through the prism of particular topics, using the perspective of the present to shed light on their views and, in turn, to make clear how their now centuries-old ideas illuminate the disturbing...

A chronological survey of the period from 1763 to 1800 and examination of the American Revolution. Key figures discussed include: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Joseph Plumb Martin, Abigail Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.