The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 -- Joseph J. Ellis, Paperback

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - In The Quartet, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis tells the unexpected story of America's second great founding and of the men most responsible--Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John Jay, and James Madison.

Ellis explains of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. 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, created the new republic. Ellis gives us a 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.

Author: Joseph J. Ellis
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 05/03/2016
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 7.80h x 5.10w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780804172486

About the Author
JOSEPH J. ELLIS is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Founding Brothers. His portrait of Thomas Jefferson, American Sphinx, won the National Book Award. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with his wife, Ellen, his youngest son, three dogs, and a cat.