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

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.) & 26^th Secretary of Defense 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author offers a revelatory new work of intellectual history 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 works of political philosophy 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 rooted in the classical ideal of virtue. 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 in this defining work of American history, offers startling new insights into these legendary leaders.

How did the minds that shaped a nation first shape themselves?

• The Founders’ Classical Education: Explore the forgotten syllabus of the Revolutionary generation, discovering why they studied Cicero and Plutarch more than Locke, and how this classical knowledge provided the framework for a new republic.
• Four Presidents, Four Philosophies: Contrast Washington’s absorption of Roman values from elite culture, Adams’ devotion to Roman law, Jefferson’s immersion in Greek philosophy, and Madison’s methodical study of ancient republics.
• Greek vs. Roman Influence: Uncover why most founders favored the Roman model of public-mindedness and order, and how Jefferson’s preference for Greek ideals of liberty and happiness shaped the Declaration of Independence.
• From First Principles to a New Nation: Follow the founding fathers from their early studies to the Constitutional Convention, seeing how their shared understanding of classical history—and its warnings about faction and tyranny—shaped American government and its founding documents.

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.