American Dialogue: The Founders and Us

by Joseph J. Ellis

Overview

The award-winning author of Founding Brothers and The Quartet now gives us a deeply insightful examination of the relevance of the views of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams to some of the most divisive issues in America today.

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 impasse of today's political conflicts. He discusses Jefferson and the issue of racism, Adams and the specter of economic inequality, Washington and American imperialism, Madison and the doctrine of original intent. Through these juxtapositions—and in his hallmark dramatic and compelling narrative voice—Ellis illuminates the obstacles and pitfalls paralyzing contemporary discussions of these fundamentally important issues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385353427
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/16/2018
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	309,650
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)
Lexile:	1460L (what's this?)

About the Author

JOSEPH J. ELLIS is the author of many works of American history including Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, which won the National Book Award. He recently retired from his position as the Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with his wife and their youngest son.

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Preface
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Excerpted from "American Dialogue"
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Copyright © 2018 Joseph J. Ellis.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
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Table of Contents

Preface

My Self-Evident Truth 3

Chapter 1 Race

Then: Thomas Jefferson 13

Now: Abiding Backlash 49

Chapter 2 Equality

Then: John Adams 71

Now: Our Gilded Age 103

Chapter 3 Law

Then: James Madison 119

Now: Immaculate Misconceptions 151

Chapter 4 Abroad

Then: George Washington 173

Now: At Peace with War 207

Epilogue: Leadership 223

Acknowledgments 241

Notes 243

Index 267

Editorial Reviews

Ellis has addressed current issues before, in interviews and essays…But never in his books. It will no doubt be jarring for some readers to find, amid mentions of the Ordinance of 1784 and Shays' Rebellion, references to the Koch brothers and police brutality. But Ellis writes with insight and acuity in the present tense, just as he always has in the past tense, and in American Dialogue he draws connections between our history and our present reality with an authority that few other authors can muster…Ellis, clearly, has reached the limit of his tolerance for the mythical, indeed farcical, notion that the anti-Federalists won the argument in the late 18th century, or that the founders, to a man, stood for small and weak government, unrestrained market capitalism, unfettered gun ownership and the unlimited infusion of money into the political sphere. There is a healthy argument to be had about the legacy of the founders, but as this book makes clear, it has to start with the facts.

The New York Times Book Review - Jeff Shesol

★ 08/20/2018
The founders have much to tell us about current problems, none of it simple, according to this incisive study of American political creeds. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Ellis (American Sphinx) probes the writings of four Revolutionary War leaders on issues of ideology and governance that still roil America. Thomas Jefferson’s hypocritical racial attitudes—he both deplored slavery (while owning dozens of slaves, some of them his own children) and believed that blacks could not live with whites as equals—frame Ellis’s discussion of the menace of modern racism; John Adams’s doubts about the feasibility of achieving true social equality underpin a look at rising economic inequality since the Reagan administration; James Madison’s attempts to convert the early U.S. from a federation to a nation-state spark a critique of Supreme Court conservatives’ originalist philosophy of jurisprudence; and George Washington’s weary realism about popular passions, human fallibility, and the difficulty of spreading republican values to foreign lands prompts a dissection of the failures of recent American military adventures. Ellis’s passions sometimes show, as in his criticism of Justice Antonin Scalia’s writings on the Second Amendment. Still, his colorful, nuanced portraits of these outsized but very human personalities and shrewd analyses of their philosophies make for a compelling case for the troubled but vital legacy of the founding generation. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2018-07-02
An eminent historian sharply illuminates the "messy moment" of the nation's founding and its implications for contemporary America.Ellis (Emeritus, History/Mount Holyoke Coll.; The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789, 2015, etc.), winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, offers a lucid and authoritative examination of America's tumultuous beginnings, when the Founding Fathers grappled with issues of race, income inequality, law, and foreign policy—all issues that still vex the nation. Believing that history is "an ongoing conversation between past and present," the author asks what Jefferson, Washington, Madison, and Adams can teach us today. "What did ‘all men are created equal' mean then and now? Did the ‘pursuit of happiness' imply the right to some semblance of economic equality? Does it now?" These and other salient questions inform Ellis' vivid depiction of the controversies swirling as the Constitution was drafted and ratified. The Founders were men of deep contradictions and evolving political views. As a young man, for example, Jefferson "insisted that the central principles of the American Revolution were inherently incompatible with slavery." The older Jefferson, who owned hundreds of slaves and fathered many children with his slave Sally Hemings, fervently believed that races should not mix. Slaves should be freed, he conceded, and then sent to the unpopulated West, Santo Domingo, or Liberia. As to equality, the Founders "were a self-conscious elite" who did not value "the innate wisdom of the common man." John Adams' "prognosis for the American future was a plutocratic aristocracy." Freedom to pursue wealth, he asserted, "essentially ensured the triumph of inequality." Ellis places Washington's famous warning against foreign entanglements in the context of westward expansion, Native American removal, and postwar negotiations. Most fascinating is the author's cogent critique of constitutional originalists, intent on recovering "the mentality and language of the framers on their own terms in their own time."A discerning, richly detailed inquiry into America's complex political and philosophical legacy.

Kirkus Reviews

Vivid. . . . Ellis writes with insight and acuity in the present tense, just as he always has in the past tense, and in American Dialogue he draws connections between our history and our present reality with an authority that few other authors can muster.” —Jeff Shesol, The New York Times Book Review

“Joe Ellis knows that history is not simply about the past, it’s about the present having a conversation with the past. In this elegant and fascinating book, he conducts a discourse between our current troubled times and the period when our founders crafted our national creed. The result is an exploration of our values that is both timely and timeless.” —Walter Isaacson, author of Leonardo Da Vinci

“Ellis has taken those recurring questions and those astonishing founders and held them up against our current agonies, seeking to make sense of the present through the prism of the past. . . . Thoughtful and thought-provoking . . . this book may prompt readers to consider that there may be no certainties in a world where philosophy, practicality, and personal interest collide.” —The Boston Globe

“Ellis is not concerned with quiet insights or reassurance. He means to mark out where we have strayed from, and how we have betrayed, America's founding ideals.” —The Washington Post

“American Dialogue tries to break the conversational deadlock by going back to the beginning and exploring the controversial choices made by the Founders themselves, asking hard questions about who they were, what they did, and what legacies they left behind.” —San Francisco Book Review

“A lucid and authoritative examination of America's tumultuous beginnings, when the Founding Fathers grappled with issues of race, income inequality, law, and foreign policy—all issues that still vex the nation. . .  .These and other salient questions inform Ellis' vivid depiction of the controversies swirling as the Constitution was drafted and ratified. . . . A discerning, richly detailed inquiry into America's complex political and philosophical legacy.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

From the Publisher

In a somber, authoritative voice, narrator Arthur Morey reveals what Founding Fathers George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams might think of today's American society. This audiobook, written by historian Joseph Ellis, focuses on the modern practice of twisting the Constitution to suit various political agendas. The Founding Fathers were men who were influenced by their upbringing and lifestyles as they tried to create a living document to guide a new country. With pitch-perfect delivery, Morey examines Ellis's work on issues like race and wealth while encouraging listeners to think independently. This painstakingly researched audiobook delves into archives and the private letters of our forefathers for a work that is endlessly fascinating—and current. M.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2018 - AudioFile