Joseph Ellis on American Creation and the Founding

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Books, History, Science, Philosophy, Courses, Interviews, Business, Economics, Ethics, Education

4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2008

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Joseph Ellis, of Mt. Holyoke College and author of American Creation, talks about the triumphs and tragedies of the founding of the United States. His goal in the book and in this podcast is to tell a story for grownups rather than for children, where the Founders are neither saints nor evil white, patriarchal slave-holding demons. It is a nuanced story of triumph--a military victory over a seemingly unbeatable vastly more experienced army, the creation of the first geographically large republic, a nation without a state religion, a nation that creates a party system with a loyal opposition, a Constitution with the virtues of ambiguous sovereignty, and tragedy--the failure to resolve the slavery issue, and the tragic conflict with the Native Americans. Some of these outcomes were intended by the Founders, others emerged unintended.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ
0:13.4	Roberts of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:18.6	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on
0:24.5	this podcast, and find links to other information related to today's conversation.
0:29.9	Our email address is mailadicontalk.org. We'd love to hear from you.
0:38.1	My guest today is Joseph Ellis, the Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College.
0:43.5	His latest book is American Creation. Triumphs and tragedies in the founding of the Republic.
0:49.2	Joe, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:50.2	Hey, it's a pleasure to be with you.
0:52.4	I want to start with a story. When I was about seven years old, my family moved from
0:57.2	a very small town in eastern Washington state called Moses Lake to Lexington, Massachusetts.
1:04.2	And my father, either out of cruelty or love, I don't know which it was, he warned me that
1:10.8	life in Lexington was going to be very different than life in Moses Lake. He said, you know,
1:15.7	those kids in Massachusetts, because that's where the revolution started, they're going
1:20.4	to know all about the revolution and you're going to be way behind. I think he was thinking
1:25.0	it would inspire me to study up and do some reading and well, I didn't do any, but it
1:31.1	turns out I didn't have to. I ended up living in Lexington for about ten years. The only
1:36.9	thing I remember about the American revolution and the founding for my education there, nothing
1:42.7	came from my classmates. They didn't know any more than I did, I don't think. The only
1:46.1	thing I remember was the auditorium in Lexington High School, where it sat around the rim April
1:51.0	1975, what a glorious day for America. And of course, we had Patriots Day, which meant
1:57.6	the Boston Marathon and an unusually late morning baseball game at Fenway Park. I don't
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.