First Principles, Thomas E. Ricks
First Principles, Thomas E. Ricks
20 Rating(s)
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First Principles
What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

Bestseller

Author: Thomas E. Ricks

Narrator: James Lurie

Unabridged: 11 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 11/10/2020


Synopsis

New York Times Bestseller
Editors' Choice —New York Times Book Review""Ricks knocks it out of the park with this jewel of a book. On every page I learned something new. Read it every night if you want to restore your faith in our country."" —James Mattis, General, U.S. Marines (ret.) & 26th Secretary of Defense The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author offers a revelatory new book about the founding fathers, examining their educations and, in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics—and how that influence would shape their ideals and the new American nation.

On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation’s founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders’ thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works—among them the Iliad, Plutarch’s Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid the influence of English political philosophers, like John Locke, closer to their own era, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world.The first four American presidents came to their classical knowledge differently. Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and distinctive learning, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examining how and what they studied, looking at them in the unusual light of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew.First Principles follows these four members of the Revolutionary generation from their youths to their adult lives, as they grappled with questions of independence, and forming and keeping a new nation. In doing so, Ricks interprets not only the effect of the ancient world on each man, and how that shaped our constitution and government, but offers startling new insights into these legendary leaders.

About Thomas E. Ricks

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008 and was on the staff of the Wall Street Journal for seventeen years before that. He reported on American military operations in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iraq. A member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, he is also the author of several books, including The Generals, The Gamble, Churchill & Orwell, and the number-one New York Times bestseller Fiasco, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He wrote First Principles while a visiting fellow in history at Bowdoin College.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Joseph on November 19, 2020

I have read many books on the "Revolutionary period" in American history, and after reading Mr. Ricks' book, "First Principles," I am convinced that if I read a thousand more books on this period I would only know about half of what there is to know. Mr. Ricks' book is an amazing analysis of where ou......more

Goodreads review by Lee on February 22, 2021

A project apparently conceived to show that what made America great has more to do with the intellectual and historical influence of Greece and Rome on the early days of the country and the formation of the Constitution than some conservative white-washed post-WWII good-old-days patriotic mirage. A......more

Goodreads review by robin on September 23, 2023

First Principles For Independence Day Every Fourth of July, I try to review a book that celebrates the themes of the day. This year, the choice is Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas Ricks' acclaimed book, "First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How that Sha......more

Goodreads review by Jamie on January 24, 2023

There is an oft repeated story about Ben Franklin which might be true (historians are undecided) that as he was walking out the Constitutional Convention one day in 1787 he was asked whether the country’s new government would be a republic or a monarchy, and he replied, “A republic, if you can keep......more

Goodreads review by Hill on November 10, 2020

First Principles by Thomas Ricks 1. The book’s main theme is how the founding fathers acquired, and applied the knowledge of the 1000 year ancient Greek and Roman governments and it’s heroes. 2. Unlike other biographical books this author is trying to find the books the founders read and how it impact......more