Summary of Thomas E. Ricks's First Principles

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 In 1778, following the harsh winter at Valley Forge, a soldier was asked his opinion of the Roman orator Cato. He responded that he had seen a play about Cato the previous evening, when it was staged in the camp’s bakery.
#2 The classical world was far closer to the makers of the American Revolution and the founders of the United States than it is to us today. It was present in their lives, and it shaped their view of the world.
#3 The ancient world was present in the lives of the Americans who shaped the country, in ways that still echo down the corridors of time. The names of American cities and towns often were references to the ancient world.
#4 The word virtue was heavily significant during the eighteenth century. It was the essential element of public life for the Revolutionary generation. It meant putting the common good before one’s own interests.

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 27 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669392552
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Thomas E. Ricks's First Principles
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In 1778, following the harsh winter at Valley Forge, a soldier was asked his opinion of the Roman orator Cato. He responded that he had seen a play about Cato the previous evening, when it was staged in the camp’s bakery.

#2

The classical world was far closer to the makers of the American Revolution and the founders of the United States than it is to us today. It was present in their lives, and it shaped their view of the world.

#3

The ancient world was present in the lives of the Americans who shaped the country, in ways that still echo down the corridors of time. The names of American cities and towns often were references to the ancient world.

#4

The word virtue was heavily significant during the eighteenth century. It was the essential element of public life for the Revolutionary generation. It meant putting the common good before one’s own interests.

#5

The founders’ conception of the ancient world was not the same as ours. They favored different subjects and people than we do in the modern era. They saw the Spartans as plainspoken, simple, free, and stable, while they disparaged the Athenians as turbulent, factionalized, and flighty.

#6

The only ancient Greek dramatist widely read in early America was Terence, a Roman comic playwright who is little read today. The only ancient Greek author widely read in America was Livy, a Roman historian.

#7

The colonial men who went on to design and lead the new American republic were an economic elite, not a long-standing aristocracy. They were thoroughly influenced by the Scottish intellectuals who came to America in the early eighteenth century.

#8

The founders’ classical education taught them that the new nation could exist on public virtue, and that party politics were unnatural and abhorrent. They misunderstood partisanship, and when they accepted human bondage, they sustained a system that was deeply inhumane.

#9

The Greeks and Romans had a system of slavery, but it was not as harsh and exploitative as its American counterpart.

#10

Washington was not a learned man, but he was a thoughtful man who rose to power through classicism. He was not bookish, and instead learned by observation and experience.

#11

Jefferson was extremely critical of Washington, but he still considered him an example of the classical standard. He was a man of deeds rather than words, and he was extremely patient with his peers.

#12

Washington never attended college, and he did not pick up Latin or French on his own. He read Caesar’s Commentaries in translation, which indicates some interest in military affairs, but there is no record that he followed up on this by reading other Roman histories.

#13

Cato was a Roman statesman who opposed Julius Caesar’s ambitions. He was born into an aristocratic Roman family in 95 bc, and from a young age, he showed a strict rejection of corruption and luxury. He was resolute in his purposes, much beyond his age, to go through with whatever he undertook.

#14

To become an American Cato, Washington would need to become a man of great virtue. He understood that for someone of his time and place, attainment of public virtue was the highest goal.

#15

Washington was a practical thinker who acquired the ability to think critically as he grew up. He knew he was destined for bigger things, and he threw himself into life. He quickly learned a trade as a surveyor, and by the age of twenty-one, he felt confident enough in his judgment and finances to make his first land purchase.

#16

George Washington was educated in the frontier of his time, and his tutor was Christopher Gist, a tough pioneer in his late forties who had paddled well down the Ohio River. He was sent to the French fort at Venango in mid-December 1753, to spy on the British.

#17

Washington’s next stop was at Fort Le Boeuf, a new outpost just sixteen miles south of the shore of Lake Erie. The French were preparing for war, and Washington wanted the British to know about it. He set out with haste, but December brought two weeks of rain and snow and then a severe cold snap.

#18

When Washington reached the French, he was surprised to see them in such shabby and ragged condition. However, he learned a lot from this journey, and not all of it was incorrect.

#19

The British response to the Declaration of Independence was to send a military expedition into Virginia. Washington was chosen to lead the Virginia Regiment, and he was torn between the honor of being chosen and the insult of Virginia troops being treated worse than militiamen from other colonies.

#20

The Battle of Fort Necessity marked the start of the French and Indian War, which lasted for almost a decade and flared around the world. Washington’s men were hungry, demoralized, and outnumbered, yet they still fought bravely.

#21

The Battle of the Monongahela was as one-sided as the May ambush had been, but this time in favor of the French. Washington’s force had suffered about a hundred dead or wounded. French losses were just three dead and seventeen wounded.

#22

The British expedition to build a fort in the Ohio River Valley was led by General Edward Braddock, who was arrogant and dismissive of the Americans he was transporting. The Americans found him to be blunt and rude.

#23

The British expedition moved westward, and on July 9, 1755, the two elite grenadier companies at the front of the column forded the winding Monongahela River twice, the water reaching to their knees. The tribesmen were hiding in the trees, and when the British flankers fled, they began firing on them.

#24

The British force collapsed on itself, and the advance guard fell back even as the rear kept moving up. It degenerated into a huge knot of terrified men.

#25

The British had abandoned so much equipment on the battlefield, the French and tribesmen were kept busy going through it. Their force had suffered about twenty-five dead and an equal number wounded.

#26

After the Battle of Monmouth, Washington began to wonder if it was all worth it. He had little to show for it. He wanted honor and reputation in the service, but he was still treated as a second-class officer by the British.

#27

Washington resigned his position as commander in chief of the British forces in the Ohio headwaters in January 1759, and went home to his plantation. He was 27 years old. He would not do much as a member of the House of Burgesses, but he was consistently reelected, and he was chosen to be part of Virginia’s delegation to the First Continental Congress in the fall of 1774.