First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

Thomas E. Ricks

[Published by HarperCollins Publishers, 2020]

• Title Page
• Contents
• A Note on Language
• Chronology

• PROLOGUE: What is America?

• PART 1: ACQUISITION

• CHAPTER 1:
  The Power of Colonial Classicism
• CHAPTER 2:
  Washington Studies How to Rise in Colonial Society
• CHAPTER 3:
  John Adams Aims to Become an American Cicero
• CHAPTER 4:
  Jefferson Blooms at Wiliam & Mary
• CHAPTER 5:
  Madison Breaks Away to Princeton

• PART 2: APPLICATION

• CHAPTER 6:
  Adams and the Fuse of Rebellion
• CHAPTER 7:
  Jefferson's Declaration of the "American Mind"
• CHAPTER 8:
  Washington: The Noblest Roman of Them All
• CHAPTER 9:
  The War Strains the Classical Model
• CHAPTER 10:
  From a Difficult War to an Uneasy Peace
• CHAPTER 11:
  Madison and the Constitution: Balancing Vice with Vice

• PART 3: AMERICANIZATION

• CHAPTER 12:
  The Classical Vision Smashes Into American Reality
• CHAPTER 13:
  The Revolution of 1800: The People, Not the Plebes
• CHAPTER 14:
  The End of American Classicism

• EPILOGUE: WHAT WE CAN DO

• INDEX