Historian Joseph Ellis Reconsiders American Founding's Moral Failures in New Book
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis has published a new book, "The Great Contradiction," that challenges his own previous consensus-building work by focusing on the founding generation's failures regarding slavery and Native American removal. Ellis argues these were not inevitable compromises but tragic moral failures, and identifies a pattern where racism resurges when racial equality becomes foreseeable. The reassessment is significant because Ellis has been one of the most influential scholars shaping how Americans understand the Revolutionary period.
Joseph Ellis, a celebrated historian known for best-selling books on the founders that have shaped national consensus around July 4, 1776 as a transformative moment, has published "The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding," which fundamentally reconsiders his earlier work. The book focuses on two major failures: the founders' inability to end slavery and their role in Indian removal, with Ellis arguing that accommodation with Native Americans was the revolutionary generation's greatest failure after slavery. Ellis introduces the concept of the "Great Silence"—noting that major Western philosophers from Plato to Locke remained silent on slavery for centuries—and identifies what he calls an "inherently paradoxical pattern" in American history where racism intensifies when racial equality becomes foreseeable, a pattern he traces from the founding through contemporary "Make America Great Again" politics. The review notes that Ellis appears influenced by recent political events and acknowledges that his mentor Edmund Morgan was correct in arguing these contradictions were present from the nation's inception.
What's missing
The review is incomplete (text cuts off mid-sentence), so a full assessment of the book's arguments and Ellis's complete thesis cannot be made from this source alone. Additionally, no information is provided about the book's publication date, publisher, or critical reception beyond this single review.
What different sources said
- The NationFar Left
The Contradictions of 1776
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