JOSEPH ELLIS

Joseph J. Ellis was educated at the College of William and Mary and Yale University. He is the author of eight books on American history, the most recent being American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. His previous book, His Excellency: George Washington, published in 2004, became an immediate bestseller.  Founding Brothers, focusing on six crucial moments in the American Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize, while American Sphinx received a National Book Award; both were also bestsellers. Ellis is generally regarded as one of the leading scholars of the Founding Fathers and one of the most successful “cross-over” historians, having managed to straddle the gap between the scholarly world and larger public audiences.

Ellis taught history at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and has taught at Mount Holyoke College since 1972.

Ellis’s commentaries have been featured on CSPAN, CNN, PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and he has appeared in several PBS documentaries on early America. In addition, Ellis has written reviews and essays for a variety of national publications, including The New York Times, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal. He has conducted seminars for federal judges and federal elected officials on America’s “original intentions” and has spoken before corporate boards on the leadership credentials of the founders.