Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Joseph J. Ellis is one of the nation's leading scholars of American history. The author of nine books, Ellis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Founding Brothers: the Revolutionary Generation and won the National Book Award for American Sphinx, a biography of Thomas Jefferson. His in-depth chronicle of the life of our first President, His Excellency: George Washington, was a New York Times bestseller.
Ellis' newest book, The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789, was released in Spring 2015.
Ellis has taught in the Leadership Studies program at Williams College. He previously taught at the Honors College at the University of Massachusetts, Mount Holyoke College, and the United States Military Academy at West Point. He lives in Amherst, MA with his wife, Ellen Wilkins Ellis and three dogs. He is the father of three sons.
Joseph Ellis's website
This bio was last updated on 09/25/2016. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's a tough task. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date or inaccurate, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors: If you wish to make changes to your bio, send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.
A Conversation with Joseph Ellis author of Founding Brothers
What made you decide to follow your award winning biography of Thomas
Jefferson with Founding Brothers and what kind of research went into this
book?
After I finished my last two books, on John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, I
realized that I had read much of the correspondence produced by the founding
generation. I did have to go through the Washington letters, and read the Burr
correspondence, but otherwise I had pretty much started a new book on the entire
group of founders without quite knowing what I was doing. And throughout those
letters, they kept referring to each other as a "band of brothers." We
think of them as Founding Fathers, but they saw themselves as a fraternity. I
should add that my title fails to include the one sister in the group, Abigail
Adams, whom I think was an equal partner in her husband's political career.
You open the book with the sentence, "No event in American history
which was so improbable at the time has seemed so inevitable in retrospect as
the American Revolution." How so?
We regard the success of the American Revolution as inevitable because we
have lived so long as a nation, over two hundred years, with the ...
For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, has three times won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year and Best ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Founding Brothers
Try:
Master of the Senate
by Robert A. Caro
Woody Holton teaches Early American history, especially the American Revolution, with a focus on economic history, African Americans, Native Americans, and women at the University of South Carolina.
Holton's 2009 book, ...
(more)
If you enjoyed:
Founding Brothers
Try:
Abigail Adams
by Woody Holton
We recommend 8 similar authors
Become a Member and discover books that entertain, engage & enlighten!
Cruel Beautiful World examines the intricate, infinitesimal distance between seduction and love, loyalty and duty.
About the book
Happiness
by Heather Harpham
A love story that follows a one-of-a-kind family through twists of fate that require nearly unimaginable choices.
Reader Reviews
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
Epic, propulsive, incredibly ambitious, and dazzlingly written--a story about sacrifice and motherhood.
Visitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends books that we believe to be best in class. Books that will whisk you to faraway places and times, that will expand your mind and challenge you -- the kinds of books you just can't wait to tell your friends about.
Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info & giveaways by email.
