Originally recorded on 10-2-2024

00:00 Introduction to Country Over Self
00:33 Meet Joseph Ellis: Historian of John Adams
02:36 John Adams: The Most Human of the Founding Fathers
04:15 Adams' Role in the American Revolution
05:58 John Adams' Presidency and Political Challenges
11:23 Adams' Peace Treaty with France
26:25 Adams' Correspondence with Jefferson
34:00 Rapid Fire Questions and Reflections
38:58 Closing Remarks and Call to Action

In this episode, Matt and Joe talk about the 2nd President, John Adams, his unusual rationale for making virtuous decisions, the remarkable story of his retirement correspondence with Thomas Jefferson, and the importance of remembering the details of the era you're contemplating as a historian.

Joseph Ellis
Joseph J. Ellis is one of the nation's leading scholars of American history. The author of thirteen 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’ most recent book, The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, was published by WW Norton in Fall 2021. In one of the most “exciting and engaging” (Gordon S. Wood) histories of the American founding in decades, Ellis offers thrilling accounts of the origins and clashing ideologies of America’s revolutionary era, recovering a war more brutal and more disorienting than any in our history, save perhaps the Civil War. Taking us from the end of the Seven Years’ War to 1783, The Cause interweaves action-packed tales of North American military campaigns with parlor-room intrigues back in England.

Ellis' essays and book reviews appear regularly in national publications, such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, The New Republic, and The New Yorker. Ellis’s commentaries have been featured on CBS, CSPAN, CNN, and the PBS’s The News Hour, and he has appeared in several PBS documentaries on early America, including “John and Abigail [Adams]” a History Channel documentary on George Washington

Ellis has taught in the Leadership Studies program at Williams College, the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts, Mount Holyoke College, and the United States Military Academy at West Point. He lives in Vermont with his wife Ellen Wilkins Ellis and two big Labradoodles. He is the father of three sons.

To learn more about Country Over Self or to check out other episodes head to Countryoverself.com.

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Country Over Self is edited and produced by Culture Collaborative Media.