First Ideas: What America’s Founders Discovered from the Greeks and Romans and How That Formed Our Nation

New York Occasions Bestseller
Editors’ Alternative —New York Occasions E book Evaluate

“Ricks knocks it out of the park with this jewel of a ebook. On each web page I discovered one thing new. Learn it each evening if you wish to restore your religion in our nation.” —James Mattis, Normal, U.S. Marines (ret.) & 26^th Secretary of Protection 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Occasions bestselling writer presents a revelatory new ebook in regards to the founding fathers, inspecting their educations and, particularly, their devotion to the traditional Greek and Roman classics—and the way that affect would form their beliefs and the brand new American nation.

On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a couple of questions on his thoughts: What sort of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or meant by the nation’s founders? Attempting to get as near the supply as he may, Ricks determined to return and browse the philosophy and literature that formed the founders’ considering, and the letters they wrote to one another debating these essential works—amongst them the Iliad, Plutarch’s Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For although a lot consideration has been paid the affect of English political philosophers, like John Locke, nearer to their very own period, the founders had been way more immersed within the literature of the traditional world.

The primary 4 American presidents got here to their classical information in another way. Washington absorbed it primarily from the elite tradition of his day; Adams from the legal guidelines and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, particularly Epicureanism; and Madison, each a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years finding out the traditional world like a political scientist. Every of their experiences, and distinctive studying, performed a necessary function within the formation of america. In inspecting how and what they studied, taking a look at them within the uncommon gentle of the classical world, Ricks is ready to attract arresting and recent portraits of males we thought we knew.

First Ideas follows these 4 members of the Revolutionary technology from their youths to their grownup lives, as they grappled with questions of independence, and forming and protecting a brand new nation. In doing so, Ricks interprets not solely the impact of the traditional world on every man, and the way that formed our structure and authorities, however presents startling new insights into these legendary leaders.