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Title details for The Quartet by Joseph J. Ellis - Available

The Quartet

Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789

by Joseph J. Ellis
Robertson Dean
Audiobook
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From Pulitzer Prize–winning American historian Joseph J. Ellis, the unexpected story of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew.
We all know the famous opening phrase of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this Continent a new Nation.” The truth is different. In 1776, thirteen American colonies declared themselves independent states that only temporarily joined forces in order to defeat the British. Once victorious, they planned to go their separate ways. The triumph of the American Revolution was neither an ideological nor a political guarantee that the colonies would relinquish their independence and accept the creation of a federal government with power over their autonomy as states.
The Quartet is the story of this second American founding and of the men most responsible—George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. These men, with the help of Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris, shaped the contours of American history by diagnosing the systemic dysfunctions created by the Articles of Confederation, manipulating the political process to force the calling of the Constitutional Convention, conspiring to set the agenda in Philadelphia, orchestrating the debate in the state ratifying conventions, and, finally, drafting the Bill of Rights to assure state compliance with the constitutional settlement.
Ellis has given us a gripping and dramatic portrait of one of the most crucial and misconstrued periods in American history: the years between the end of the Revolution and the formation of the federal government. The Quartet unmasks a myth, and in its place presents an even more compelling truth—one that lies at the heart of understanding the creation of the United States of America.

  • Creators

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  • Awards

  • Release date

    May 12, 2015

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780553550764
      • File size: 242831 KB
      • Duration: 08:25:53

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This audiobook details the events of one of the most forgotten decades in American history. The Revolution that came before the 1780s and the Constitution that came at the end of that decade are deservedly well chronicled--but what of the key era in between, which shaped who we are as a nation? Listen and marvel as we learn more about the genius of Washington, Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay. Robertson Dean's deliberate, authoritative voice lends this work an air of importance that is both compelling and accessible. The potentially dry story is an adventure as told by the masterful Ellis, and Dean propels it forward with a lively pace and impeccable diction. It's good history at its best. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 23, 2015
      Few can tell a historical tale as well as Ellis, as many readers will be aware from his eight previous studies of the Revolutionary War era (Revolutionary Summer, etc.). True to form, here he reviews this short but important time in America’s history through the eyes of its major figures—George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison—rather than offering an analysis of the weighty interval between the nation’s failed first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, and the ratification of the second (and successful) constitution and its first 10 amendments, which we now know as the Bill of Rights. Ellis’s approach employs deft characterizations and insights into these politicians and philosophers, who bested their opponents by “imposing their more expansive definition of the American Revolution” on the American people. With his usual skill, Ellis brings alive what otherwise might seem dry constitutional debates, with apt quotations and bright style. There may be equally solid surveys of “the second American Revolution,” a term Ellis borrows from other historians, but this one will be
      considered the standard work on its subject for years to come. It lacks the fresh interpretations and almost lyrical prose of Ellis’s previous books, but it’s a readable, authoritative work. Agent: Ike Williams; Kneerim, Williams & Bloom.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 31, 2015
      Here Ellis describes the hard-won journey undertaken by George Washington, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison to push the 13 colonies from pluribus to unum after the Revolutionary War. Dean, an experienced voice actor, narrates this satisfactory audio edition, exuding confidence with tone and dictation. His deep, rich bass lends a certain gravitas to the political machinations of the players involved. Yet Ellis’s narrative shows, in considerable detail, how tenuous, unlikely, and contested the quartet’s fight for a strong central government was, and Dean’s strong, stable reading lacks this air of uncertainty. The final hour of the audio book consists of Dean simply reading the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, and the Constitution of the United States. A Knopf hardcover.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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