#1453 Fourth of July Questions

Listening to America

Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

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Summary

We welcome back the noted author and historian Joseph Ellis this week to join with Clay Jenkinson and respond to the many questions we received from listeners generated by our annual Independence Day show.

You can order Clay's new book at Amazon, Target, Barnes and Noble, or by contacting your independent bookstore. The Language of Cottonwoods is out now through Koehler Books.

Mentioned on this episode: Joseph Ellis: The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783; Joseph Ellis: After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture

Find this episode, along with recommended reading, on the blog. Support the show by joining the 1776 Club or by donating to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Inc. You can learn more about Clay's cultural tours and retreats at jeffersonhour.com/tours. Check out our new merch. You can find Clay's publications on our website, along with a list of his favorite books on Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and other topics. Thomas Jefferson is interpreted by Clay S. Jenkinson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good day, Thomas Jefferson, our podcast listeners. As always, I must say, thank you so much for
0:05.5	listening. We appreciate your time. This week, I just love these shows so much. We have
0:12.9	Joe Ellis back on and to listen to the two of you back and forth is just a joy. And this
0:19.2	this week's show is no exception. Well, you know, he and I have been friends since 1996, but now we're
0:25.1	friends. You know, this has been one of the great things that's happened in my life that I
0:30.3	could never have anticipated that's so eminent to scholar and historian. A man who's won all
0:35.9	of the awards would give us the amount of time that Joe Ellis has given us over the past 18 months.
0:43.5	This is partly the result of the pandemic, and it's enabled the three of us, you and he,
0:49.3	he and I, and the three of us together to form a friendship, which I think people listening can
0:54.0	hear. There's a playfulness. There's a conversational tone to it. We disagree, but always in good
1:00.0	fun. I mean, we're talking about having one of the great historians of our time giving a fair
1:06.9	amount of his own time and debriefing himself after a career of just extraordinary achievement.
1:14.8	And I feel blessed. And I think that this is a unique gift that we can offer the listeners
1:21.2	to the Thomas Jefferson hour. A lot of this week's conversation centered on responses to the show
1:27.4	second or fourth, which was our annual fourth of July show. And the two of you answered a lot of
1:32.6	listener email about that. And you also talked a fair amount about John Adams. And then we touched
1:38.8	on the HBO miniseries, John Adams, which we all agree was fabulous. We didn't say this in the
1:45.1	program, but for as far as I'm concerned, Paul Giamatti is John Adams and John Adams is Paul Giamatti.
1:50.8	That is an inspired characterization. And I will never think of John Adams without looking at
1:57.1	Paul's neurotic anxiety-ridden face. He nails it. This is really a masterful portrayal of the great
2:08.9	John Adams. And I'm just very fascinated by the nature of this friendship. So in my opinion,
2:15.6	Adams was right, but not always nice in the correspondence. Jefferson was always nice, but not
	...

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