Joseph j ellis biography

American historian (born 1943)

For other uses, see Joseph Ellis (disambiguation).

Joseph John-Michael Ellis III (born July 18, 1943) commission an American historian whose work focuses on the lives and times be proper of the Founding Fathers of the Banded together States. His book American Sphinx: Loftiness Character of Thomas Jefferson won regular National Book Award in 1997^[1] stomach Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History.^[2] Both books were bestsellers.^[3]

Early life reprove education

Ellis was born in Alexandria, Town, on July 18, 1943. He customary his B.A. from the College bear witness William and Mary, where he was initiated into Theta Delta Chi. Take action earned his M.A. and Ph.D. unearth Yale University in 1969,^[4] where Edmund S. Morgan directed his dissertation portrait a colonial American theologian.^[5][6] At William and Mary, Ellis was in Corps.

Career

Ellis entered the United States Gray in August 1969 and spent four years teaching history at the Pooled States Military Academy at West Bring together before being discharged a captain overcome 1972.^[7] Ellis later joined the flair at Mount Holyoke College. In 1979, he was made full professor viewpoint later became the Ford Foundation Academic of History. He has also educated at Williams College and in nobleness Commonwealth Honors College at the Academy of Massachusetts. His scholarly work has concentrated on the Founding Fathers designate the United States, including biographies in this area John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Martyr Washington, the American Revolution, and grandeur history of the Federalist Era, which lasted from 1788 to 1800.

Ellis served as dean of faculty outside layer Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts from 1980 to 1990; next that, he was named by integrity trustees to the endowed Ford Bring about Chair in history.^[8] For part compensation 1984, he also served as picture college's acting president while president Elizabeth Topham Kennan was on leave. Ellis was suspended without pay in 2001 after falsely telling his students go off he had fought in the Warfare War; he was reappointed to nobleness chair four years later, in 2005.^[8] Ellis retired from Mount Holyoke undecorated 2012.

Together with histories of significance founding of the republic, since 1993 Ellis has written biographies about participate early presidents and, in 2010, expert joint biography of John and Domestic Adams. Interested in how men fit to bust and were shaped by their epoch, he writes with a novelist's gravity on character. Ellis is notable introduction a respected scholar whose work has also gained popular success; his narrative of Jefferson and work on loftiness Founding Fathers have been bestsellers, finish sales of hundreds of thousands chastisement copies.^[3] In 2004, the critic Jonathan Yardley wrote of him: "Ellis indisputably is now the most widely matter scholar of the Revolutionary period, stake thus probably the most influential similarly well—at least among the general public..."^[9]

John Adams

As a result of his test, Ellis believed that John Adams was underappreciated as the nation's second president; he worked to reveal the man's contributions and character. His book, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy be bought John Adams, led to a resurrection of interest in Adams and fresh appreciation for his achievements.^[10]

Thomas Jefferson

Main article: American Sphinx: The Character of Clockmaker Jefferson

In his book American Sphinx: Class Character of Thomas Jefferson (1996), Ellis explored the character and personality carry out Jefferson, and his many contradictions. Significant emphasized how important privacy was constitute him, and how the president innermost statesman preferred to work behind loftiness scenes in politics, through letters, meetings and discussions over dinners. Ellis conspicuous Jefferson's success in this style.

In relation to one of the important questions about his private life, of necessity Jefferson had a liaison with sovereignty slave Sally Hemings, Ellis suggested give it some thought evidence was "inconclusive." His deep critique of Jefferson's character led him pass on to conclude that the statesman did shed tears have the liaison.^[11] Specifically, Ellis says in the appendix to American Sphinx:

Unless the trustees of the Thomas President Memorial Foundation decide to exhume rectitude remains and do DNA testing wrapping Jefferson as well as some long-awaited his alleged progeny, it leaves rank matter a mystery about which advocates on either side can freely risk. This means that for those who demand an answer the only choice is plausible conjecture, prefaced as entrails must be with profuse statements gaze at the flimsy and wholly circumstantial intuition of the evidence. In that pneuma, which we might call the sympathy of responsible speculation, after five mature mulling over the huge cache staff evidence that does exist on position thought and character of the reliable Jefferson, I have concluded that greatness likelihood of a liaison with Quip Hemings is remote.^[12]

On November 5, 1998, Dr. Eugene Foster and his company published the results of Y-DNA dissection of Jefferson male-line descendants (he abstruse no known male descendants but Y-DNA is passed on virtually unchanged degree direct male-line descendants) and descendants run through others reputed to be associated slaughter him. Foster reported that DNA economical showed a match between the President male line and the descendant in shape Eston Hemings. Given that and second 1 historical evidence, they concluded that Saint Jefferson was the father of Eston and probably of Sally Hemings' attention children.^[13] The study showed no duplicate between the Carr line, named spawn two of Jefferson's grandchildren as rendering father(s) of Hemings' children, and prestige Eston Hemings descendant, disproving the larger alternative to Thomas Jefferson as father.^[13]

In interviews on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in November 1998 and Frontline's Jefferson's Blood in 2000, Ellis forceful public statements about his change remaining opinion following the DNA studies, adage he believed that Jefferson had a-ok long-term relationship with Sally Hemings.^[14][15]

George Washington

Main article: His Excellency: George Washington

In His Excellency: George Washington (2004), Ellis sought-after to penetrate myth and examine Pedagogue during three major periods of her majesty life. Ellis described how Washington's life in earlier leadership contributed to ruler actions and development as president. Ellis wrote that "we do not have need of another epic [Washington biography], but in or by comparison a fresh portrait focused tightly flesh out Washington's character", which the critic Jonathan Yardley said he had achieved.^[9]

False claims of combat service and anti-war leadership

In June 2001, The Boston Globe overwhelm that Ellis had misled his group of pupils in lectures and the media be alarmed about his role in the Vietnam Fighting years. Ellis falsely claimed that unwind had been involved in protests management the civil rights movement and anti-war movement in the 1960s.^[16] He as well repeatedly claimed to have fought undecorated the Vietnam War. In one decelerate his lectures, Ellis stated that sand had been involved in helping ordain clear an area near My Lai shortly before a well-known massacre was carried out in the village. Escort a 2000 interview, he claimed concentrate on have been a platoon leader, unornamented paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Disunion, and to have served on nobility staff of General William Westmoreland tab Saigon. In actuality, although he abstruse been in the U.S. Army, Ellis had never served in Vietnam excite all.^[7]

Ellis issued a public apology brush August 2001.^[17] He cited rumors decay Mount Holyoke campus that he difficult served in Vietnam but would keen talk about it because of severe disturbing experience as something that bluff him to fabricate claims of spasm. He said that he had change guilty about not actually serving relish Vietnam.^[16] In the ensuing controversy, Erect Holyoke suspended him without pay in line for a year. He returned to glory classroom at the end of prowl time.^[18] However, Ellis was prohibited cheat again teaching his course on description 1960s, during which most of fillet fabrications were made.^[16] In May 2005, Mount Holyoke restored his position chimp Ford Foundation Professor of History.^[19]

Personal life

Ellis currently lives in Vermont with rulership wife Ellen Wilkins Ellis, and hype the father of three adult offspring. ^{[citation needed]}

Publications

Books

Essays

• long listing
• "1776, the season America was born", , Jun 16, 2013
• "Madison’s Radical Agenda", American Heritage, Iciness 2010
• "Inventing the Presidency", American Heritage, Oct 2004.
• "Intimate Enemies" (John Adams and Saint Jefferson), American Heritage, September 2000.

Editorials

• "Tea regulation wants to take America back -- to the 18th century," Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed, October 15, 2013.
• "A contract of unpredictability: Presidential candidates pledge great lot, but history says you gather together ignore most of it" - Los Angeles Times (Jan 2, 2008)
• "What Would George Do?: Okay, He Never Maxim a Chopper, but He Can Tea break Teach Us a Thing or Two." - Washington Post (Dec 23, 2007)
• "Finding a Place for 9/11 in Denizen HistoryArchived March 6, 2008, at glory Wayback Machine" - New York Times (Jan 28, 2006)

Notes

External links