Biography

Joseph Ellis was born on July 18, 1943 in Alexandria, Virginia, USA. He is a writer, known for American Experience (1988), The American Revolution (2025) and The American Experiment (2026).

He was a member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity.

He graduated from Yale University.

When the Founders talked about "we the people" they were not talking about black people. They weren't talking about women, and they weren't talking about Native Americans. Whenever race enters the question, the Founders are going to end up disappointing you.

[on the difficulty of comparing modern America with the nation of Thomas Jefferson] It's a size problem...The single most important difference is that we are attempting to do something that nobody has ever done before: create a fully and genuinely multiracial society in a huge nation.

My view of history is that trusting in the better angels of our nature is a bad bet. The Founders didn't believe in the better angels. They created a Constitution which was designed to deal with imperfect human beings.

[on what will finally unite Americans] A great crisis that leaves us no choice but to come together. When the coastal areas have to be evacuated, when the real implications of climate change begin to hit, we're going to be forced to come together.