American Dialogue: The Founders and Us

by Joseph J. Ellis, Arthur Morey (Narrator)

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.

8 Hours and 30 Minutes

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, American Revolution, Audiobook, Biography

9 pages, Audio CD

First published October 16, 2018

About the author

Joseph John-Michael Ellis III is an American historian whose work focuses on the lives and times of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His book American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson won a National Book Award in 1997 and Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History. Both of these books were bestsellers.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

One would expect, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph J. Ellis, more history books, but this is only half that. Each chapter focuses on a founding father (one each on Jefferson, John Adams, Madison, and Washington) and is paired with a chapter on the here and now, specifically how that founding father's moment in history has evolved to our present-day situation.

And what a situation! It's good the expression "rolling in his grave" is merely figurative, because if it were for keeps, these poor four would get no sleep. Many of the things the Founding Fathers feared are now not only out of the sewers, but openly negotiating daylight. Turn on your TV or read an independent newspaper (while you can) and you'll see what I mean.

Translation: If the ascendance of ignorance and fear in American politics bothers you, it's best that you fight it with a healthy dose of knowledge. With American Dialogue, a back-and-forth between then and now, you've come to the right place.

In the Jefferson pairing, Ellis tackles RACE, America's deeply-ingrained sickness that just. won't. give. Ellis shows us how the young Jefferson was more idealistic than the older one, how close Jefferson came to nipping the race question in the bud before it could flower into civil war almost a century later, and how Jefferson, for all his credentials, did indeed consider whites superior to blacks, despite Sally Hemings being his mistress for years and years.

What an opening salvo, especially when paired with the ascendance of a black man to the White House (Obama) and the convulsive reaction (Trump) those eight years unleashed. This section of the book provides a "through a glass darkly" look that must be read if you call yourself American, red or blue strain. It may not be pretty, but it is us, and if we're not prepared to deal with "us," God help us all.

The John Adams section that follows tackles the issue of EQUALITY. John Adams is the overlooked founding father who, for reasons beyond me, does not have a monument in Washington or a carving in the hillside at Rushmore. Adams and Madison both saw the legislative branch, particularly the House of Representatives, as the most important piece of the new American system of government. The ascendance of both the executive branch and the now fully political judicial branch would shock them.

Adams also worried about us. That is, "the people," and our susceptibility to demagogues. If you ever wondered how ordinary Germans and Italians could blithely follow Hitler and Mussolini down the path to perdition, Ellis will prove just how easy it can be. Here are some edifying quotes from the Adams section that might affect your views on Adams:

“…the Adams critique of Jefferson operates at a much deeper level of intellectual and ideological sophistication, involving nothing less than a wholesale rejection of what he regarded as the following illusions of the French Enlightenment: the unfounded belief in the preternatural wisdom of ‘the people’; the naïve assumption that human beings are inherently rational creatures; and the romantic conviction that American society was immune to the class divisions so prevalent in Europe. The political differences between Adams and Jefferson are too multifaceted to be captured in the conventional categories of ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative.’ What we must negotiate is the distinction between a realist and an idealist, a pessimist and an optimist, a skeptic and a believer. Both men were rock-ribbed American patriots, though diametrically at odds over the likely shape of America’s future…

“The clear implication of [Adams’] presidency, at least as Adams saw it, was that leadership necessarily entailed not listening to the voice of ‘the people’ when it ran counter to the abiding interest of ‘the public,’ which the president had a moral obligation to defend even more forcefully when it was unpopular… Adams had no trouble endorsing the Lockean doctrine that all political power derived from ‘the people.’ but he could never bring himself to think about popular sovereignty in the reverential fashion that Jefferson embraced with such intoxicating assurance. ‘The fundamental Article of my political Creed,’ he declared quite defiantly, ‘is that Despotism, or unlimited Sovereignty, or Absolute Power is the same in a popular Assembly, an Aristocratic Counsel, an Oligarchic Junto and a single Emperor.’

“Adams realized that this creedal statement was heretical in the Jeffersonian political universe, where it was inherently impossible for ‘the people’ to behave despotically. He was attempting to disabuse his old friend of the same kind of magical thinking that had permitted medieval theologians to conjure up miracles. There was in fact no surefire source of political omniscience on this side of heaven, and making ‘the people’ into just such a heavenly creature was a preposterous perpetuation of an alluring illusion about kings long since discredited by Jefferson himself in his indictment of George III in the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, if you wanted to know where such illusions about the infallibility of ‘the people’ led, you only needed to follow the bloodstained trail of the French Revolution, which moved through massacres at the guillotine to its inevitably despotic destination in Napoleon.”

The Madison section tackles LAW and is followed by a "now" chapter called, appropriately, "Immaculate Misconceptions." What most impressed me here was how present-day "Constitutionalists" who also go by the misnomer "originalists" bend the Constitution to their own partisan designs. As a poster boy for these abuses, Ellis uses the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote one of the most convoluted majority decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). It was Scalia's chance to interpret PART of the Second Amendment to satisfy conservatives' (and the newly-political, Rambo-style, organization known as the National Rifle Association's) interpretation of gun rights.

Chief Justice Warren Burger, a Nixon-appointed conservative, was once asked if the Second Amendment guaranteed open-ended access to guns. He replied: "This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word 'fraud,' on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."

As Ellis notes, the words on the plaque outside NRA headquarters conveniently delete the preceding clause about militias in the Second Amendment as written by the Founders. All we get is "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." As Justice John Paul Stevens correctly (that is, if you care what Madison et al. intended) stated, "The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several states to maintain a well-regulated militia."

Period.

In the last section on Washington, titled ABROAD, we get a dose of foreign relations as seen first through the lens of Washington and then through the cloudy lens of now. It was wonderful to read how Washington and his good friend Henry Knox attempted to negotiate treaties with the Indians (starting with the Creek tribe) that were fair and that would legitimately observe new borders protecting the tribes. Trouble was, white settlers poured over these "borders" as if "treaty" and "joke" were synonymous. The infant republic, meantime, did not enjoy the money, the means, or the army to back up its words and commitments, making its words and commitments mere lies. As we all know, history would repeat itself on this count again and again and again until no American citizen can read their history with the Indians without blushing in shame at what we had wrought.

I haven't enjoyed a book of "history" like this in quite some time. Great concept. I hope Ellis doesn't stop here. And I hope every reader who cares about this republic reads it so we can work against the fraudulent politicians, judges, and media personalities who wrap themselves in flag and Constitution to harm both. These people are not patriots. They are misguided at best and traitorous at worst, and that is all of our concerns.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ellis is a gifted writer of history. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as well as his Founding Brothers. Here he gives us four essays discussing topics facing the founding fathers and how these same issues are being dealt with now. We read about race and Thomas Jefferson, equality and John Adams, law and James Madison, and foreign policy and George Washington. This unique history underscores continuity with the past, helping us to understand the present and prepare for the future.

Race – Thomas Jefferson

First, Ellis discusses Thomas Jefferson and his views on slavery and race. In 1784 as a Virginia delegate to the Confederation Congress, Jefferson proposed that all new states admitted to the Union be required to abolish all forms of slavery by 1800. This proposal received serious consideration, only losing by one vote. Jefferson noted “the fate of millions yet unborn [was] hanging on the tongue of one man, and Heaven was silent in that awful moment.” Enacted and carried out this provision might have prevented the Civil War. Ellis posits that Jefferson had viewed slavery as an anachronism but not as immoral. Even though in Jefferson’s public life he had proposed freeing the slaves and deporting them to the western territories, in his personal life he held on to his slaves like any other owner. It would have been, of course, politically disastrous for him in Virginia not to. Jefferson was typically reticent in the face of controversy. When he had the chance as president after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to set aside an area for the slaves he demurred. He now felt the slaves had to be expatriated to Africa or a Caribbean island. In further duplicity in his Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1785, Jefferson proposed emancipation but held that the races could never mix because blacks were inherently inferior. He felt the biggest peril was not for the slaves, but the white owners who were corrupted. Yet he went on to have a lifetime relationship with Sally Hemmings producing six children. The four surviving to adulthood were freed honoring the agreement he had made with Hemmings. In the 1820 Missouri Crisis Jefferson reacted with pro-slavery bigotry using states’ rights as a façade. Slavery had exploded due to cotton farming in the lower south making expatriation of slaves no longer viable. Meanwhile in Virginia more diversified farming was unprofitable and slave owners like Jefferson, Madison and Monroe died in bankruptcy. Ellis asks how we should treat the Jefferson Memorial. Remove it or modify it to represent Jefferson’s true legacy?

Ellis notes that Jefferson never meant blacks when he held that “all men are created equal” and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued primarily to weaken the Confederacy. I believe based on McCullough’s biography that Truman was sincerely trying to address one instance of inequality when in 1948 he ordered integration of the armed forces. In doing so he ignited the post WWII Civil Rights movement culminating in the voting rights act of 1964. I think, based on Caro’s biography, LBJ’s embrace of civil rights was more of a political strategy than an embrace of morality. Both Truman and LBJ advanced civil rights, bringing a venomous backlash, the latest iteration being MAGA and Trump’s voter fraud allegations. Sadly Ellis thinks that the backlash will only get worse as we approach 2045 when the white population is projected to be a minority.

Equality – John Adams

Next Ellis uses the relationship between Jefferson and John Adams to discuss equality and the role of government to achieve it. Jefferson wanted the federal government to stay out of domestic affairs holding that it would become an autocratic institution. This position was understandable as the Revolution had just thrown off a monarchy, but it also served as a very convenient cover for slavery. Adams saw that wealth would fill the vacuum of power left by royalty and that without a strong government Jefferson’s egalitarian goals (blacks excluded) would fail at the hands of the greedy and controlling. Wealth would accumulate in families. Oligarchies would develop. Adams saw Jefferson’s views as naïve. Jefferson could never face the discordant. His slaves faced the consequences of his failure to acknowledge reality. He said it was his responsibility to take good care of them, yet he died without freeing them, families were broken apart and they were sold off individually, many undoubtedly to the hard life of the cotton fields. Adam’s belief in the never ending aggrandizement of the rich anticipates the gilded age, Thorsten Veblen’s “conspicuous consumption”, and the spiraling economic inequality of the past forty years. Jefferson’s American exceptionalism gave way to what Adam’s foresaw, the inherent human drive for power and glory.

Now in America, the richest 10% have 60% of the wealth. But it’s more concentrated than that. The richest 1% have 30% of America’s wealth. But it is even more concentrated than that. The richest .1% have 10% of the wealth. From 1972 to 2012, after inflation, the income of the 99% fell by 13% while the richest 1% gained 153% in income. Income inequality is at an all-time high in America. Income inequality has risen in America since the gilded age in the late 19th century with the exception of the 1940s through the 1970s due to WWII and New Deal policies. The latest rise in income inequality is due to (1) policy changes that have significantly reduced taxes on the rich, (2) globalization that has facilitated moving higher paying manufacturing jobs in developed countries to countries where wages are low, and (3) automation that has further eliminated higher paying manufacturing employment forcing workers into lower paying service jobs. Ellis also points to the destabilizing loss of trust in government. He cites three reasons: (1) The civil rights movement that disaffected racists, particularly older whites in the south, (2) the Vietnam War that alienated the young, and (3) the Watergate scandal. Beginning with Reagan, the New Right evolved to challenge the role of government. It was funded by the rich, such as the Koch brothers, to increase their wealth and power, and encouraged by foreign adversaries to weaken the country, even though the messaging would emphasize freedom. With the ascendance of the New Right income inequality has grown worse.

Law – James Madison

Ellis holds that Madison is arguably the father of the Constitution. Madison was fearful that the Union would disintegrate into regional confederations of states. He wanted a strong union and helped organize the Constitutional Convention and recruit Washington to lead Virginia’s delegation giving the Convention the stature it needed to be successful. What Madison learned along the way was the need to be flexible. He didn’t get everything he wanted in the Constitution, but it was a vast improvement over the Articles of Confederation. Madison went on to draft the Bill of Rights. The Constitution was a political document, the result of compromise, and views of its meaning shifted as it was negotiated. It was purposely ambiguous so each state’s delegation could read it with the meaning they desired. As the Constitution evolved to approval, Madison, whose own views had been changed by the process, realized that it was a “living document.” Ellis focuses on the second amendment as an example of interpretation then and now. After ratification, the Congress passed the militia act requiring all men between 18 and 45 to enroll in their state militia. They were required to purchase their own gun. The need to have a gun for the militia is what the second amendment was referring to.

Ellis takes issue with the originalists, those judges, now in a majority in the Supreme Court, who say they interpret the Constitution’s original meaning based on what the founding fathers intended. As Ellis points out, the Constitution meant different things to those at the Constitutional Convention and even different things to the same person at different points in time. So originalist judges can selectively view constitutional history to make any point they want and that is exactly what they do. Jefferson called for a “living constitution “saying that “…laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind….We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” Originalism surfaced in the 1970s as a tactic to confront liberal Supreme Court interpretations. As the New Right grew so did conservative funding for law schools and organizations such as the Federalist Society to spread originalist doctrine. While originalists claim their position is non-partisan, one of detachment, Justice Brennan called it “arrogance cloaked as humility.” The NRA did extensive advertising to convince the public that the right to bear arms was guaranteed in the constitution. It lobbied and funded politicians to back originalist judges that supported the NRA’s position. When in 2008 Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion in District of Columbia v Heller he employed “law office history” to select the facts that supported his interpretation. The decision in this case overturned previous decisions by the Court that recognized the right to bear arms had been intended to support the militias of the time. The originalists claimed the founders meant to prohibit restrictions on gun possession and struck down laws the District of Columbia had passed. Scalia is entitled to his opinion, but it is a partisan opinion that he and other originalists claim is somehow sacred because of their ability to divine the “meaning” of the founders.

Abroad– George Washington

When Washington became president one of his main concerns was foreign policy. Washington is remembered for his Farewell Address and admonishment to avoid involvement in European affairs. The land from the Appalachians to the Mississippi river that the United States acquired as part of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was his first priority. This huge addition to the original colonies was Indian Territory. How could the young fragile democracy manage its development? Jefferson saw no need to manage it. Just let people come and go as they wished. Washington knew that without an effective policy, land grabbers would descend on the new land helter-skelter killing and driving out the Indians, which is exactly what happened. He was also afraid of distant settler communities becoming independent, even colluding with foreign powers. The individual states regularly made treaties with the Indians that they soon violated systematically driving the surviving Indians west. Washington attempted to establish federal government control. With great fanfare he executed a treaty with the Creek Indians granting them a large section of land west of settled Georgia. The settlers ignored it. They simply went in, took the land and killed or drove the Indians out. Washington realized he and the federal government were powerless. The country was effectively still a confederation. Washington believed managing western expansion was essential to making it a nation. Despite the American outcry over European imperialism, imperialism of the U.S. in its westward expansion would tie the nation together.

Ellis turns to the period following the demise of the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War left the U.S. as the world’s dominant power. How did the U.S. use that power? It started by invading Iraq. Now the president could make war without Congress. Nor was there a draft, which would have also limited the president’s options. Since the physical toll of the war fell on volunteers, there was far less pushback from the general public. 9-11 would follow. Islamists replaced Communists as the world’s evil threat. More war ensued, Afghanistan and a second Gulf War that culminated in ISIS. In between were military actions in Kosovo, Somalia, and Libya. Going to war was easy and well supported by a huge military-industrial complex. There was reaction rather than strategy. Now with Trump and America First, a selective isolationism has set in, although America is still actively supporting the war in Yemen and trade wars are the norm. Alliances are demeaned and diplomacy is an afterthought. With Trump all policy is based on how it helps him personally including foreign policy. The age of the founding fathers has never seemed so far away.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ellis provides an excellent discussion of how our founding fathers were able to create a nation-sized republic that was wholly secular with its political sovereignty divided between three branches of government. The resulting Constitution was a truly revolutionary document. How they did this was through logical argument based on facts and thoughtful consideration. [Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were likely the two most well-read men of the age.] As an added bonus, Ellis provides an “ongoing conversation between past and present”. Ellis believes that our civic dialogue has broken down; and therefore, incapable of conducting political argument that is productive and capable of moving the country forward.

Ellis contrasts the views of Jefferson and Adams regarding the new democracy. Jefferson believed that economic and social equality is inherent in America; whereas, John Adams felt that “as long as property exists, it will accumulate in individuals and families”. [It’s as if he foresaw the Gilded Age.] Adams believed that government needed to regulate capitalism in order for it not to thwart the egalitarian expectations of the people.

The demagogic tendencies of Donald Trump would have appalled the founders.

Highly recommend.

[Ryan Boissonneault · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would summarize the book like this: The founding fathers of the US are often looked to with deep reverence but superficial understanding, as many “originalists” or “constitutionalists” have not bothered to take the time to read what the founders actually said. If we want to have a proper dialogue with the past, and abide by the intentions and spirit of the founders, we must understand them in all of their complexity, and not as caricatures of our own narrow political agendas.

The idea that the constitution is meant to be read as a divinely-inspired and infallible document is supremely misguided. This is made clear throughout the text, but perhaps never more so than in the words of Thomas Jefferson himself:

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment...But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.”

You couldn’t find a more anti-originalist position than this. Jefferson didn’t believe that the dead should rule from the grave, and that living generations should be constrained by dictates of the past. For all those advocating an originalist position, Jefferson himself would not have been an originalist!

The appropriate way to interact with the founders, as advocated by the author, is as a conversation informed by their wisdom but not constrained by their commandments.

Understanding original intentions is a tricky business anyway, considering the volume of written material, the complexity of the issues, and the frequent changing of minds within a social and political culture that is unrecognizable. Jefferson understood all of this, and yet we look to the founders as semi-divine figures of an infallible nature, forgetting that four out of the first five presidents, including Jefferson, owned slaves.

Still, there is wisdom to be found, and the greatest wisdom is in the character and demeanor in which the founders resolved issues. The founders of the US, we should not forget, were political philosophers before they were politicians. They were all thoroughly familiar with history and the great thinkers from ancient Greece to the Enlightenment era. They embraced informed debate, based on careful reasoning and the complexities of history. If there is one thing we should learn from the founders, it is to understand the past on a deeper level so as to raise the standard of debate.

On a final note, one particular quote that stuck out to me was a quote by John Adams, writing to Thomas Jefferson:

“In every society known to man, an aristocracy has risen up in the course of time, consisting of a few rich and honorable families who have united with each other against both the people and the first magistrate.”

Adams predicted, centuries ahead of time, the rise of the two Gilded Ages (one of which we’re living in now, with income inequality as severe as before the Great Depression). He knew that all societies, unless something is done to stop it, eventually produce social and economic elites that achieve political domination at the expense of everyone else. If this doesn’t ring true to you now, you’re not paying close enough attention.

[Josh Muhlenkamp · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this book is that the Founders created a dialogue on a number of important issues, a dialogue that is still ongoing today as we continue to live in the nation they created. That is all well and good. Also worth reading are the historical portions of the book; Ellis is one of the premier historians of the Founding era, and anything he writes about that era is deserving of attention.

He receives two stars from me, however, because when he writes about how that dialogue is continuing in the present day, he fails to present it as a two-sided dialogue. Instead, he takes great efforts to point out the historical basis for his favored side of the dialogue, which happen to essentially line up with the progressive platform. Unfortunately, he then fails to accurately represent the conservative side of the dialogue - he cherry-picks arguments, presents straw men, and fails to understand the conservative positions.

The example that was most clear to me (although it may be because of my background) was in his section on law, when Ellis discussed the debate between originalism and a "living-constitution" theory. In doing so, however, he repeatedly defined originalism as seeking the "original intent" of the Founders. That is not what Scalia (who Ellis acknowledges was the most influential proponent of this method of interpretation) and his brethren sought to do. In fact, Scalia wrote an entire book on why judges shouldn't use the intent of legislators while interpreting a legal text. Rather, Scalia's position was always that words have a certain meaning at the time they are enacted into law, and that the meaning of those words cannot change simply because the society around them changes. If society wants the laws to change, society needs to create new laws, with updated meanings. If judges are free to interpret legal texts based on a current meaning of words and clauses that have changed over time, there is no standard against which a judge is to interpret, except his/her own preferences.

Rather than wrestling with that fact, Ellis argues that the Founders, being a wide-spread group of individuals, have differing views on everything, enabling a person to argue their intent for virtually any position. That is one of the major reasons Scalia opposed legislative intent as a basis for interpretation.

Ellis's failure to accurately portray one side of the dialogue, especially on issues that are so important and controversial, renders his book little more than a naked partisan attempt to change people's minds, dressed up in the attempt to appear fair to both sides.

[David Wineberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Then and Now of the USA

American Dialogue is the pathetically ill-chosen title for an important and well-presented book. Joseph Ellis has pulled together a career’s worth of examining (and teaching) history. Using several of the US founding fathers as examples, he shows what they really faced, how they really dealt with everything, and where they led us – astray or otherwise. Every other chapter concerns how we deal with those same issues today. The comparison is not especially favorable to either era, but putting things in perspective is of immense value. Our assumptions today do not match the reality of then, even if we say they do. Yet we deal today with not only some of the same issues, but a lot of the fallout from the founders’ errors, compromises, and failures.

American Dialogue quotes the founders in their various government positions, complaining then about exactly the same things we complain about today: that foreign policy seems to be pure caprice, that Congress is no body to make hard decisions, that the clear path is never chosen, that getting agreement to move forward on essentially anything is nearly impossible (and this before the party system took hold).

Thomas Jefferson was a wild card. He committed and withdrew. He supported and betrayed. He wanted to free the slaves, but only if they could immediately be deported so as not to dilute the blood (eg. throughout his own family). He fabricated stories about George Washington being a British spy (fake news!). But he also insisted the constitution was a live, fungible document: “We might as well require a man to still wear the coat which fitted him as a boy, as civilized society to remain under the regime of their barbarous ancestors.”

John Adams tried to keep the politics out of politics and keep America on the high road. His battles included equality, which is not a natural state, and which requires government programs and laws to maintain. He recognized that aristocracy/inequality would be a threat to the country. Ellis says Adams, along with John Jay, are the most underrated and least studied/famous of the founders.

James Madison was the architect of the Constitution. He manipulated George Washington out of retirement to help him implement a workable system, and save the country. He worked the crowd of delegates, built consensus, and got a lot of what he wanted. What was dropped would have solved many of the problems the USA faces today.

As president, George Washington focused on avoiding a calamity with Native Americans. He negotiated a genuine, honorable and fair treaty with the Creek, which was immediately (and literally) trampled by the public moving into its sovereign territory. Having no standing army, and needing a good 5000 troops to keep the interlopers out, Washington failed and was humiliated. His successors did not pick up the torch.

The Second Amendment raises its ugly head too, as Ellis shows where it came from and how it was distorted before it was finally passed, backward and incomplete (it’s not even a sentence as passed, thanks to Congress). It was originally meant to mandate public service in a militia. Today of course, it means everyone should have unlimited semi-automatic assault weapons.

There is a lot of nonsense about originalism that Ellis dispels. Antonin Scalia’s triumphant Keller opinion claims to represent the thinking of the founders and the American people of the era, but it really relies on current trends and misrepresents the founders. Not to mention 200 years of case law. The exact opposite of what Scalia claimed originalism stands for, and in defiance of what Jefferson and Madison declared.

Ellis says the USA is a contradiction - an empire that is a republic. The two cannot occupy the same body – but they do. The USA has acquired territories throughout its existence. At first, the West was foreign, handled by the State Department. Later, various islands were conquered. And now it has well over 800 offshore military bases, and five generals responsible for the entire world, sectioned into five theaters of operation. This republic is an empire, subject to all the weaknesses of every empire that preceded it.

America has never done the good guy thing very well. It has never understood how to win the peace. Right after the war of independence, all the states went their own ways, leaving the United States a hollow shell. They even reneged on pensions for its soldiers. The USA was headed for disintegration and anarchy. The constitution was a “roof with no sides”. It took the acquisition of the rest of the continent to get the original states interested in it being one country. Today’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have clearly failed to implement postwar anything. They have cost five trillion dollars, which Ellis says, would have solidified Medicare, Social Security and all the infrastructure needs of the country. This is precisely how empires self-destruct.

There are seemingly hundreds of lessons we have not learned in American Dialogue. It gives the nation badly needed perspective, and a smattering of truth.

David Wineberg

[Quo · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Dialogue: The Founders & Us by Pulitzer Prize winning author Joseph Ellis is as the title suggests, an attempt to consider a group of America's founders in terms of how they have continued to influence the United States over the last 140+ years, the period from the Declaration of Independence to the 2018 publication of the book.



As a part of this American Dialogue, Prof. Ellis examines some fundamentally & continuously divisive issues that serve to define America, among which are: Race, Equality, Law & Foreign Relations (labelled "Abroad") and he strives to demonstrate how the character of America's initial leadership corps continues to influence the development & the struggle for diversity in the United States.

An essential point is that "the diversity among the founders made dialogue inevitable", suggesting as with Walt Whitman that "the founders contained multitudes." One of the opening structural points that Ellis emphasizes is that the American Constitution contained the essentially important words, "we the people", rather than "we the states", with some of the states having regarded themselves at the time of the document's writing as essentially sovereign entities.

Beyond that, the "two ghosts" at the Constitutional Convention were the issues of monarchy (how closely America was to be structured in a format similar to Great Britain) and slavery.

Joseph Ellis is a gifted writer but also by avocation a historian & he has much to say about the nature of history, including that for a historian, objectivity is impossible; the best that one can hope for is a kind of detachment, with even this a very difficult component for the historian.

History is an ongoing conversation between past & present, with detachment itself a delusional commodity. In his Style in History, Peter Gay put the point succinctly: "History is always unfinished in the sense that the future always uses the past in new ways." In fact, the past is not history but a much vaster region of the dead, gone, unknowable, or forgotten. History is what we choose to remember & each of us has no alternative but to do our own choosing.

What this book is for me is a glance backwards to reexamine some of the key figures who conceived of & attempted to bring to pass a working union of disparate states. Thus each reader will choose to remember the past differently. As the author phrases it, "to the writing of relevant history, there are no immaculate conceptions".



The book begins with a comment about Jefferson's insertion of the wording "self-evident truths" in the Declaration of Independence, which had originally been stated as "sacred & undeniable truths." (Apparently, Ben Franklin suggested the change to Jefferson.) Ellis holds that "slavery is the central contradiction of American history, given our creedal commitment to individual freedom."

Straddling the divide with uncommon ability, Thomas Jefferson on both sides represents both America's greatest saint & its greatest sinner, the iconic embodiment of America's triumphs & tragedies at one & the same time. He stands as the Mona Lisa of American racial history.

This is just one example of the author's commentary on Jefferson, with his earlier book, American Sphinx having eloquently profiled the man at great length. While Jefferson was distinctly anti-slavery & considered a "proto-abolitionist", he held that blacks were inferior in both mind & body, while Native Americans were not inferior. Jefferson was a study in paradox & Monticello was a "veritable laboratory for precisely the kind of racial mixing that T.J. was said to abhor".

In the treatment of the section on equality, John Adams is given high praise because "he is the only prominent founder who anticipated the emergence of of an embedded version of economic inequality in American society, a prophecy that seemed thoroughly un-American to most of his contemporaries." Ellis indicates that while...

other founders were auditioning for the roles as proper Roman senators, Adams actually preferred to be cast as Sancho Panza, riding across the American landscape on a mule while admonishing his betters for tilting at windmills.

The political differences between Adams & Jefferson are too multifaceted to be captured by conventional labels like "liberal & conservative". What we must negotiate is the distinction between a realist & an idealist, a pessimist & an optimist, a skeptic & a believer, the north & south poles of the American Republic. Both men were American patriots, though diametrically at odds over the likely shape of America's future.

The coverage of James Madison appears in the section designated as "Law" and he clarified what was termed Vices of the Political System of the United States, an indictment of the Articles of Confederation, a "catalogue of his own grueling experiences over 5 years that gradually transformed him from a provincial Virginian to a dedicated nationalist."



Ellis comments that in spite of a short stature (5'4") & a scholarly demeanor, Madison was a political character imbued with great intensity. His initially pessimistic predictions about the new republic kept coming true and Madison's place at the Constitutional Convention was "essential to empowering the federal government with authority over the states."

Madison offered an ingenious argument in favor of American nationalism, politically calculated to touch what Abraham Lincoln later termed "the mystic chords of memory." Ellis commented that: "If God is in the details, Madison would be there to greet him upon arrival." In brief, James Madison made it possible for "those defined as Virginians to transition to becoming Americans."

Regarding American foreign policy, Ellis comments that with the end of the Cold War, "the global landscape has recovered its baffling, multilayered complexity & no longer fits within a bimodal frame. It's as if the gods replaced their binoculars with a kaleidoscope." Whether the United States is historically equipped to lead in the new global context remains an open question according to Ellis.

And in terms of leadership, the author falls back on historian Arnold Toynbee, who suggested that leadership a[[ears only in societies undergoing great crisis, with the American Revolution having been the greatest political crisis in American history.



In the end, Joseph Ellis tell his readers that America's founders should be remembered but not canonized. They created the 1st nation-size republic and the 1st wholly secular state. However, they were responsible for two conspicuous failures: putting an end to slavery and avoiding the removal of America's indigenous people.

American Dialogue is exceedingly well-written but Ellis does at times seem to force conclusions to fit his own political bias, a limitation for some readers. That said, this is an exceedingly interesting book that attempts to deal with unanswered questions that have been around since the nation's founding & which persist, causing not just fractious debate but a kind of political tribalism.

*Within my review are 2 photo images of the author, Joseph Ellis + side-by-side images of John Adams & Thomas Jefferson and lastly, a postage stamp image of James Madison.

[Mike Glaser · Rating 2 out of 5]

Since retiring as a professor, I guess Joseph Ellis has decided to become a political commentator as well as a historian. It really does not work out well for him. As a historian, he really knows his stuff and having read him before, I figured that I would enjoy this book as well. And, the historical parts of this book are the best part about it. If I were only rating those parts, then this book would be closer to a four star book than a one star. When it comes to the “modern” part of the conversation, you just end up with a rant from a left wing academic that is based on selective facts. Let’s start with the military since I am a vet. Despite what Dr. Ellis says, there was a peace dividend - where does he think that the budget surpluses in the late 1990’s came from. Also, this is part of the reason that the costs after 9/11 were so high, we had to build the military back up. The make-up of our current military is mostly to the point of vastly made up of the middle-class. The under represented portion of the country includes the upper class and children of academics like Dr. Ellis. You can go on from there. I would conclude that if Dr. Ellis feels that federal taxes are too low and should be higher, no one is stopping him from paying a higher amount. In fact, if he did so it would lend a great deal of credibility to his arguments.

[Mehrsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really important book and one that I think everyone should read. Ellis goes through several topics (inequality, race, guns, economic regulation) and shows the various contrasting perspectives of each that were present at the founding. The Constitution is not a straight forward document with only one reading (as many have understood). Neither did the founders agree on how it and the bill of rights should be interpreted. The books is very well done and it's balanced and very relevant.

[Brian Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A common hypothetical in political discussions with friends and family is the consideration of what the Founders would think of the current state of the nation. Of course, it is impossible to truly answer, but there are clues if one has read enough of their thinking and philosophy to give a plausible answer.

Ellis of course has spent his life researching the Founders. This book, clearly spurred by the deep concern that most citizens of all political persuasions feel about the current state of the union, is his cogent and frankly brilliant response to that hypothetical. The book is divided into four sections centering around key modern concerns since the founding: race, income inequality, legal developments, and foreign policy. The sections open with an overview of four Founders and their own views on those subjects: respectively, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Washington. After that examination, Ellis details developments in that area historically up until present concerns.

Jefferson's own views on race were actually progressive for their day at least in thought. Ellis notes that race relations still remain strained because emancipation and desegregation were never addressed with concurrent socioeconomic improvements. So "black lives matter" is at root a cry for improvements in black lives that remain dominated by ghettoization as well as shoot first, ask questions later policies. The very fact that so many young black men spend their young adulthood in prison is indeed its own segregation. Adams noted that income inequality would always remain as long as such a small portion of the population controlled the means of production. Indeed, we are currently undergoing a Second Gilded Age since the rollback of the New Deal and the Great Society during the Reagan Revolution. In the section on Madison, Ellis absolutely obliterates the idea of judicial originalism, detailing the deeply flawed reasoning behind Scalia's majority opinion in the 2008 Heller case. And Washington's original dealings in foreign policy never prepared Americans for the post 9/11 era, in which no true republic has ever also successfully managed to maintain an empire of any kind.

I loved this book and found it hard to put down. Essential for all readers wishing to connect Founders ideology with the current developments in American politics. Ellis triumphs again.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a suburb little book that makes a case for the importance of history to the present moment. Stated explicitly at the outset and interwoven throughout, Ellis argues that all history is really history for the present and that we produce the fiction that we are in a dialogue with the founders, their stories, ideas, and acts to help make that past present.

The question is, then, whether we can make use of history to further our purposes in the present. Ellis makes a compelling case that we can, taking us through five excursions in US policy--race, equality, law, foreign policy, and leadership--how the founders wrestled with these areas, and connected how we are still grappling with each area of policy in the present.

We need to see that disagreement and argument were present at the founding, continue to be the animating spirit of democracy and, turning conventional wisdom on its head, are more part of the solution than they are part of the problem. The risks we face are the key political and policy decisions being wrenched from these processes of disagreement and argument by dark money (viz. the new robber barons), the special interests that serve their purposes, and the abuses and misuses of history that they and their political henchmen will try to foist on us.

[Hayley Stenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does an excellent job of describing the founders and their beliefs on different topics, (Jefferson/race, Adams/economics, Madison/law, Washington/international relations). The founders were clearly flawed and were even aware at the time they did not deserve the pedestal we place them on. I appreciated their flaws and complexities. The issues are complex and the founders could never have seen how we would have evolved (although a few had some pretty good ideas about where we would go). Ellis does a great job of showing where we are today, and reflecting how those who claim to know and understand the Constitution are the ones choosing not to do so. As Ellis states, "The great sin of the originalists is not to harbor a political agenda but to claim they do not, and to base that claim on a level of historical understanding they demonstrably do not possess." I feel like this is so much to crux of our problems today, a disregard for intellectualism, and a manipulation of facts.
Overall, this was a great read, and I have so many more thoughts I am sure I will process them over the next few weeks/months, as I continue to think about this book.

[Avid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. I wish there were more stars to give. I did a lot of highlighting, a lot of reflecting, and a lot of discussing with others the concepts contained in this book. There were many new (to me, at least) insights and interpretations relating to the founding fathers and their thoughts and intentions, both during their own time and with an eye towards posterity (that’s us!).

As a caution, this book is not going to be easily digested by the masses; it’s a tough read. I often stopped to re-read certain passages or sentences in order to fully comprehend their message. Sometimes I stopped reading altogether just to process what I’d just read. That said, its content is important for thinking people to hear. A bit of reflection on and evaluation of our current state of affairs alongside that of the revolutionaries can promote a greater understanding of and appreciation for how we got here and where we’re heading.

If I haven’t scared you off, please promote this to the top of your TBR pile - its message is timely, and your contribution to the discussion is needed.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read Ellis previously I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, it was a partisan book operating under the guise of history. Ellis’ clear disdain for anything right of center was both off putting and unnecessary. Ellis is a master historian, but this book smack of someone who doesn’t like what he sees in the world and uses history to shoehorn his own opinions in.

[Joseph Sciuto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joseph Ellis' "American Dialogue: The Founders and Us" is a stimulating, thought provoking book, that provides a dialogue (a debate) between the intentions and ideas of our Founding Fathers (Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison and patriots such as Franklin, John Jay, and Hamilton) and how they relate to our modern day politics and America's place in the world. The sections of the book dedicated to the conversations (letters) exchanged between Presidents Adams and Jefferson and the part of the book dedicated mostly to President Washington are nothing short of amazing.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are literally dissected in such a way that one could easily come to the conclusion that both documents were written by men deeply flawed, uncertain, biased, and to a large extent racist, yet in the end there is no denying how brilliant both documents are and how disgracefully they have been interpreted and by our modern day politicians and Supreme Court Justices for political, ideological, and greedy purposes. The second amendment, as written by the Founders, was not intended to give all citizens the right to bear arms but only those serving in militias. So for all those gun-ho gun advocates, who skipped serving in Viet Nam because of bone spurs, but take great pleasure in killing unarmed animals you cowardly few, according to the correct reading of the Constitution should not even be allowed to own water pistols.

Joseph Ellis, along with a handful of current historians, have literally re-written American history and to them we owe a great deal of gratitude.

[Donald Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true masterpiece. Ellis makes a compelling, thoughtful, intellectually honest and important case for history as a tool to discern the right course of action. One chapter is a "founders" story and the next is an analysis of our present dilemmas. It was a clever and helpful device to teach and make one think. I ache to have been in one or more of his classes. He pulls no punches in explaining the logic and inconsistencies of then and now. He acknowledged and explained the "humanity" feature of political decisions and actions. This is such an important book! How do we get our political thinkers and readers to read it?

[Bruce Katz · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, if it matters. I have long admired Ellis' writings. His "Founding Brothers" is still one of my favorite works of historical analysis. More than any other book I've read, it demonstrates how the issues we fight about today were present at the beginning; that is, before there was something called the "United States" and, it follows, before there was any consensus on whether "United States" implied a single body or a collection of bodies (states). Since "Founding Brothers" was published, Ellis has written many other worthy and insightful books. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the disjointed nature of our times, his most recent works ("The Quartet" is a good example) have been characterized as much by his personal beliefs and opinions as they have by his research. I say this not as criticism -- for I tend to share many of his opinions -- but as a simple statement of how I see his most recent work.

"American Dialogue" continues this trend in Ellis' work. Many readers will, I'm certain, describe this book as a 'What Would the Founders Do/Think' kind of exercise. I understand why they might say that, but I believe such a view robs the book of much of its richness and even, if I may say so, misses the point. As Ellis points out, The American Dialogue [the founders] framed is a never-ending argument that neither side can win conclusively. It is the argument itself, not the answer either liberals or conservatives provide, that is the abiding legacy.

Ellis' objective is made clear in his introduction: 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? Who were included in "We the people" then? Who is included now? ... Given our current condition as a deeply divided people, my hope is that the founding era can be become a safe place to gather together, not so much to find answers to those questions as to argue about them. Indeed, if I read the founders right, their greatest legacy is the recognition tat argument itself is the answer.

"American Dialogue" looks at four broad topics: Race, Equality, Law, Foreign Policy. (His epilogue addresses the problem of Leadership.) In each case he focuses on a particular founder (Jefferson, John Adams, Madison, Washington) as a jumping off point to examine what certain concepts meant at the time, how the founder's thinking evolved over time, what particular words were used in drafting our founding documents and what words actually made it into the versions we know today -- and why -- and so on. [Here's an interesting example: In his look about the complicated and contentious drafting of the Constitution, he notes why the Bill of Rights had to be added to the end of the document rather than be included in its body. What's more, as he notes, "The first ten amendments did not receive a separate title as the 'Bill of Rights' until Franklin Roosevelt popularized the term in the 1930s."] From here, Ellis turns his eyes to how we think about each of these broad topics today. He is clear in his making his own positions known. For example, he sees the legal philosophy of Originalism as essentially a con: The great sins of the originalists is not to harbor a political agenda but to claim they do not, and to base that claim on a level of historical understanding they demonstrably do not possess.

There is much to think about in "American Dialogue," and Ellis doesn't pretend there are easy or clear answers. The Founders themselves didn't agree amongst themselves, and their opinions changed as time passed. The principles we often view as central to their thinking and their vision came not from nights of solitary contemplation -- or at least not only from such moments -- but from the interplay of numerous, often contentious voices. What's more, the founders themselves weren't at all sure what they were creating. Citing the work of historian Gordon Wood, Ellis writes, All of the founders who lived long enough to witness the emergence of a full-blooded democratic political culture in the 1820s regarded it as an alien presence and not at all what they had in mind when they launched the American experiment in 1776. While there is much to admire in the founders, the distinctive brand of leadership they provided is impossible to duplicate because -- and this is deeply ironic -- we inhabit a democratic America that they simultaneously made possible but that then made them impossible.

I'm not optimistic that Ellis's hope will be realized, but he makes a useful contribution to our understanding of our past as it was, not as we would reductively phrase it. We'd be far better off if only even a little of this viewpoint were to enter our own angry dialogues.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to on chapter a day.

[Ava Butzu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite being a relative neophyte to the study of American History, particularly the Revolutionary War era, I was quickly and easily swept into Joseph Ellis' investigation into the complexities of the proverbial Founding Fathers - their actual words, their possible intended goals, and their often ironic and contradictory actions. As Ellis states, his goal is to examine these ambiguities and follow the trail to some of our biggest problems in contemporary America: civil rights, imbalances in the 3 governing branches, Native American diaspora and the dream of making America "great" again through isolationism.

Ellis' juxtaposition of these two eras is is rooted in his sense that the Revolution the the first years as a nation "produced the Big Bang that created all the planets and orbits in our political universe."
But the book is not so expansive that it can't be followed fairly easily. Ellis focuses in on four main thought leaders: Thomas Jefferson (he's not a fan, but he does respect Jefferson for trying to do right in the first half of his life, and for his wordsmithing genius); John Adams, whom he esteems highly for his vision and optimism; George Washington, who is every bit the hero in Ellis' purview; and James Madison, whom Ellis feels was the real genius behind much of the writing of the founding documents. The menacing Patrick Henry makes a few cameos and ushers in the first American "fake news."

While Ellis doesn't solve any of the problems of distilling the actual intent of the Founding Fathers in their writing of the Declaration of Independence or Bill of Rights, he does examine possible and even probable meanings, which are far different than we may have been taught by our teachers and told by our leaders. As Ellis says, "The study of American History is an ongoing conversation between past and present from which we have much to learn." I did, indeed, learn a lot from this excellent study of history.

[John Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish people that fetishize the Founding Fathers and create a false narrative of our independence would read this book to understand the historical context of the Constitution and other documents. It's too easy though to create bedtime story rather than see the complexity of our history and our current moment.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

The end of chapter 3 is nothing short of brilliant. The assessment regarding the 5 conservative Supreme Court justices legislating from the bench (an argument frequently used against liberal jurists) using 19th century dictionary and 18th century Constitution was on target.

[Sarah Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

I have such respect for authors that have the ability to make history come alive, that humanize great people, and make it relevant. This book looks into 4 major issues surrounding our world today. Race and multiculturalism, income inequality, the structure of government, and foreign policy.

Beginning with race, it’s obvious Jefferson would be our touchstone founder. An avid racist, who owned slaves but felt slavery itself was wrong, yet again, a virulent racist. When it came to finding a viable solution, he failed miserably. He hated interracial anything, yet had many kids with his slave mistress. If this is a major force in our founding, it’s no wonder we took so long to end slavery and are still having issues with racism.

Adams has always been an intriguing founder, and he rightfully saw the enemy to the republic, if not checked, the aristocracy. The few with all the money, equaling all the influence. We’re now in our neo gilden age, especially after the Citizen’s United case opening up corporate money as free speech. Jefferson feared the federal government and the people as the sacred, ironic since he was president for 8 years and acquired the largest set of land than anyone before or after him. Adams is the most human if only because he wrote so much. He was on the right side of this issue, income equality is a major issue that has yet to be fixed.

Madison is also a fascinating founder. Often called The Father of the Constitution, Ellis looks at his adaptability throughout the Constitutional convention and with the movement of people and politics. That nothing was necessarily set in stone, that the debate was the point, that dialogue brought the answers, that the Constitution was meant to be a living document. My favorite bits of this section is how well Ellis rips apart the orginalist argument of justices like Scalia. Pretty awesome. That the constitution doesn’t have one sovereign, but rests power into 3 branches and the individual states, is itself, amazing. On top of that, it’s secular, which makes it revolutionary.

And finally, Washington and foreign policy. Interestingly, according to Ellis this nation was seen as exceptional because of its geographical location, away from Europe so that it was able to grow and build its military and its governance, by Washington. As opposed to our meaning now, which aligns with Jefferson, we are the best and you can copy us and be great too. Washington felt a bit different and believed in the public welfare. Our democracy isn’t transferable mainly because of the circumstances we became a nation in. We became a nation out of anti-imperialism, and yet we also committed a covert genocide. Talk about complex.

[Paul Womack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a marvelous introduction to the four founders he presents: Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Washington. Their distinctive poins of view are discussed and the relevance of their thinking to contemporary times is given thoughtful reflection. This is just a wonderful book.

[Max D'onofrio · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a fun book to me. Short but told through key moments in founding father moments of character to examine modern politics. I have already read a lot of books on this time period, but I will look to read more of this author's books.

[Blaine Welgraven · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The study of history is an ongoing conversation between past and present from which we all have to much to learn."

--Joseph J. Ellis, American Dialogue

Over the years, I've read several articles calling for American Presidents to be advised by a panel of historians. That call has always appealed to me, as one of formal history's explicit purposes is to more accurately understand--and therefore assess--the present.

With that said, Ellis and American Dialogue are reality's gentle reminder that even a well-educated, properly degreed panel of historians would be no guaranty to properly interpret the present--let alone the recent past. American Dialogue examines four seminal topics--race, equality, law, and foreign policy--using lenses Ellis designates as "past" and "present" (both lenses are actually examinations of the past, with the "present" sections simply more recent history). Given the reach and weight of these topics, I expected Ellis's work to be an exercise in historical restraint and nuance. Indeed, the "past" sections do properly reflect this historical mindset, best illustrated in Ellis's detailed examination of Jefferson's evolving view on race, slavery, and the power of the Executive Branch.

Unfortunately, American Dialogue’s "present" sections rapidly devolve into a frustrating combination of progressive philippics, dubious assertions, and failed predictions, often losing any semblance of historical subtlety. A few examples:

--Ellis's "present" chapter on economics, glibly titled "Our Gilded Age," relies on a paucity of sources to make generic, partisan, and even inaccurate statements about the last four decades of US economic growth. Thomas Piketty's work, we are informed by Ellis, is basically a "fact-based consensus." The scores of economists, technologists, and political scientists who have vehemently--and vocally--questioned everything from Pikkety's overarching conclusions to his use of economic data, do not exist in Ellis's convenient narrative.

--Ellis's uncomplicated acceptance of the "southern switch" narrative is particularly uninformed, given the recent statistically based scholarship that has examined southern voting patterns and revealed a far more complex narrative than the one Ellis wishes to assert (for starters, see Sean Trende's excellent work, The Lost Majority, 2014).

--Ellis bemoans the presence of corporate donations and dark money in a post Citizens United v. FEC world (2010), and manages to consistently tie both subjects to the "corporate" Republican party--and the Republican party only. It's perhaps his most misleading moment. Set partisanship aside--what follows next is simply math and history. Democrats have won each of the last four presidential funding cycles--three of them handily. I'm sure subsequent editions of Ellis's work will take pains to note that it is now Democrats who hold the advantage--in growing numbers--in "constitutional corporatism" and dark money, including the 2020 presidential race, where the Democratic Presidential nominee had better than a 6-1 advantage in dark money received alone.

In short, American Dialogue's historical examinations of the distant past are useful, subtle, and enrich the reader's understanding of key founding fathers and their viewpoints; its sections on the present are partial, sectarian, and contribute little to whatever "dialogue" the writer intended to facilitate. The historian becomes less historical, the closer he draws to the present.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is cataloged by the library as history, but it could just as well be placed in current politics. The much-honored, founding-era historian puts four of the founders--Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Washington--in conversation with current issues that face the United States.

The first section on race is worth the price of the book. Ellis lays out Jefferson's conflicted views on the slavery question--the belief that all men are created equal and his ownership of humans. Jefferson's view was that emancipation would only work if the black slaves were immediately transported out of the thirteen colonies to the West Indies or, preferably, back to Africa. His reason was that he feared "race mixing." Yes, the father of Sally Hemmings' children did not want to "degrade" the white race by intermarriage with persons of African descent. The older Jefferson got, the more conservative his views became on slavery. Notably only the Hemmings children were freed on Jefferson's death; the rest of his slaves were sold to pay his debts.

With Adams we confront "equality" and interestingly Adams big fear was the domination of the political culture and society by the wealthy. He and Jefferson argued back and forth about the influence of the "aristocracy." Adams did not believe there would be an aristocracy of merit, but that, as always, power would gravitate toward the rich.

Madison's role here is to look at "law" as the moving force behind the Constitutional Convention. In the contemporary section, Ellis reveals himself as quite liberal, decrying the recent "originalist" strain of legal argument (elaborated most clearly in Scalia's "Heller" opinion) and reveals it for the fraud it is.

The Washington focus is on "abroad" or foreign policy stemming from his famous Farewell Address. Unknown to me, Washington believed that his main failure as president was that he was not able to successfully maintain lands east of the Mississippi for the Native Americans. The rush of Americans over the Allegheny Mountains made that "foreign policy decision" untenable. He, too, recognized slavery as a failure of the Revolution and the formation of the new government, and did not free his slaves until his death.

Ellis admires the generation of the late-eighteenth century Americans who created a Revolution and a new nation, but he clearly sees their flaws. Nonetheless, they brought about the formation of the world's first wide-spread democracy in a post-imperial, secular age. Ellis, however, argues against the current understanding of "American Exceptionalism" which seeks to implant these democratic structures on other nations (think Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc.) While some be uncomfortable with historian who reveals his contemporary political views, I found this book to be quite absorbing.

Highly Recommended.

[Vel Veeter]

The sheer number of books that Joseph Ellis has written about the Revolutionary/Founding Father generation, and especially about Thomas Jefferson had me worried that this book would end up being warmed over platitudes, and not very interesting critique of lost American values. Instead, he opens up with a section on "race" and basically tells us, somehow Thomas Jefferson is one of the most vociferously anti-racist writers of his generation (kind of!) while being a very racist person, who got more racist as he got older. What becomes clear then through this first section is that not only is Ellis incredibly well-read about this generation (and this book barely captures his career), he's also a skilled writer and thinker, he takes the questions related to the writing of history, and starting thinking about how to apply history, while also admitting that applying history has a very fraught past in American writing. So what this books ends up doing is really showing how different ideas in American political thought can be traced through their origins to problems we're facing today, and asking tough questions about what that means for us now. The problem of course is that we're in a pretty bad place currently, and that there's no obvious way out just right this moment, dang it. As with other books I've read recently this is a book that's actually a syllabus, and worth looking into.

[John Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. Ellis has produced several excellent books about the American founding history. This one focused on four key issues that have beguiled American history since its founding -- race, inequality of wealth and power, state vs federal power, and international relations (isolationism) -- and presents them through the eyes of four of our founding fathers -Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Washington.

[Don LeClair · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not find the book a particularly interesting read. Basically he takes various people and stories from the founding of the country then explains why any centrist to right ideas in modern America are wrong. Moving on to find a compelling read somewhere else.

[Deidre · Rating 4 out of 5]

The set up of this book is one section about one founding father followed by a chapter on a contemporary issue and how that history helps us understand. So for example the first section talks about Jefferson and then racial inequality and black lash, the second about John Adams and then economic inequality and American oligarchy. The third is about Madison and the constitution and originalism, and finally George Washington and isolationism and foreign policy.

The first three sections are really must reads in my opinion. Jefferson, despite declaring all men equal, was a total racist of course, and very hypocritical about it. The things he said are reflected today in the words of white nationalists, that races shouldn’t mix etc. Of course he had an entire mixed race family, but he didn’t worry about people realizing that I guess. He is also reflected in white liberals today who claim to not be racist but yet aren’t willing to do anything to dismantle a racist system, or even acknowledge their own privilege within that system.

Adams was a realist who believed that without safeguards an economic oligarchy would happen in the United States, which of course is what happened in the early twentieth century. After safeguards in the 40s and 50s we had a couple decades with a strong middle class, but then came Reagan and the citizens united decision and we once again are facing a threat to our democracy with oligarchs holding the reins in government.

The third section shows how messy the drafting of the constitution was, and how it makes no sense to look at it as a sacred document or to think of the people who worked on it as “divinely inspired” or deify them in some way. It helped me understand the pull between people who think we have a “living constitution” and originalists like we have on the court now, and how conservative groups with specific agendas pushed the originalists view. Ellis makes the argument for a living constitution since the writers seemed to intend it that way. Jefferson said that if people thought it was too sacred to change it would be like continuing to wear a shirt that’s too small. Ellis also writes about the second amendment and how in modern times people leave out the part about militias, and that in his view the original intention was to make gun ownership a duty of citizenship not a right, and also that that particular shirt is way too small.

The George Washington section was not as good but I did learn some things. I had never thought about how incompatible a republic is with imperialism and yet the United States was pushed toward that right away with western expansion and treaties made and broken with Native Americans. This was all “foreign policy” at the time. Washington was frustrated with the white settlers and thought it was wrong they moved into Indian Country. He even despaired that he needed to build a wall to keep the settlers out. He was unsuccessful of course and the tragedy happened anyway. One of the reasons I dropped a star for this book is that while Ellis calls the genocide of Native Americans and slavery the two greatest American tragedies he says the first was inevitable and unpreventable. It’s like “whoops oh well that didn’t work out I guess we’ll take over the whole continent” while even today there are choices to be made for our country to do better for Native Americans, and we still aren’t doing it well. Look at the Little Shell Chippewa Tribe in Montana trying to get federal recognition right now. He makes it sound like there was one big mistake and that was it but there were many many mistakes that kept coming through the decades. We could have done better at any of those points, and we can do better right now.

I felt the epilogue was skippable, but maybe I just got tired of reading non fiction? Also, Ellis is more interested in the lives of the founding fathers than I am, I’m just interested in how the history informs current events.