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First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

Author: Thomas E. Ricks.

First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

Author: Thomas E. Ricks.

$29.99 $2.99
Item #: D21946
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 386
Publication Date: 2020
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780062997456
Much has been made of the Founders' debt to Enlightenment thinking, but they owed even more to the ancient Greeks and Romans, suggests Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Ricks. The first four presidents came to their classical knowledge differently: Washington absorbed it from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson imm... More
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Much has been made of the Founders' debt to Enlightenment thinking, but they owed even more to the ancient Greeks and Romans, suggests Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Ricks. The first four presidents came to their classical knowledge differently: Washington absorbed it from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy; and Madison spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. In examining how and what they studied, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of statesmen we thought we knew.


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