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

Placeholder author icon
By Thomas E. Ricks

Published Nov. 7, 2020

First Principles details the classical philosophical learnings of America’s first presidents and how those ideas came to shape both their ideology and the country they helped to found. Among these accounts is the story of James Madison 1771’s politically active life while studying at Princeton.

Paw in print

Image
The cover of PAW’s November 2024 issue, featuring an illustration of a military tank that's made out of a pink brain, and the headline "Armed With Ideas: Princetonians lead think tanks through troubled political times."
The Latest Issue

November 2024

Princetonians lead think tanks; the perfect football season of 1964; Nobel in physics.