First Notice Including Request For RSVP's

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

First Notice Including Request For RSVP's

Post by johnkarls »

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From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The Approximately 150 Recipients of Our Weekly E-mail
Subject: RSVP’s Requested -- "The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789" by Prof. Joseph J. Ellis – May 16
Date: Sat, April 7, 2018
Attachments:
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Dear Friends,

Our next meeting is Wednesday evening, May 16th, at the Salt Lake Public Library (210 East 400 South).

In accordance with our quorum-revision policy of 6/12/2013, instead of waiting until the last week before each monthly meeting to request RSVP’s and canceling if we do not have our minimum quorum of six, RSVP’s are requested in our first-of-the-monthly-cycle weekly e-mail.

Those who have RSVP’d will be informed immediately when we reach six so that they can proceed to read the materials with assurance that a discussion will take place.

If there are not six RSVP’s by 11:59 pm next Friday, then next week’s weekly e-mail will announce that the 5/16/2018 meeting is cancelled.

Non-SLCounty residents (and residents who are out of town) are invited to participate in our meeting via Skype. If you would like to do so, please press your reply button and type “request participation via Skype” and we will contact you to make appropriate arrangements.


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OUR FOCUS BOOK FOR MAY 16TH --

"The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789" by Prof. Joseph J. Ellis [Paperback Reprint Edition by Vintage 5/3/2016 -- 220 pages sans notes & appendices].

It was proposed by Thomas and Denise Chancellor. Thomas is a retired U/U Law School Professor. Denise is the retired Assistant Utah Attorney General for Environmental Matters. BTW Denise is a native Australian. She and Thomas met as young attorneys in Paris, City of Love!!! [Only Rome, City of Eternal Love, would have been more appropriate!!!]

Amazon.com -- $7.78 paperback + shipping or $11.99 Kindle.
Salt Lake Public Library – 3 of 3 copies of the original hardcover version (Knopf 1215) currently available.
Salt Lake County Library – 13 of 14 copies of the original hardcover version (Knopf 1215) currently available.


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AMAZON DESCRIPTION

In The Quartet, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Joseph Ellis tells the unexpected story of America’s second great founding and of the men most responsible—Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John Jay, and James Madison: why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. These men, with the help of Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris, shaped the contours of American history by diagnosing the systemic dysfunctions created by the Articles of Confederation, manipulating the political process to force the calling of the Constitutional Convention, conspiring to set the agenda in Philadelphia, orchestrating the debate in the state ratifying conventions, and, finally, drafting the Bill of Rights to assure state compliance with the constitutional settlement, created the new republic. Ellis gives us a dramatic portrait of one of the most crucial and misconstrued periods in American history: the years between the end of the Revolution and the formation of the federal government.

The Quartet unmasks a myth, and in its place presents an even more compelling truth—one that lies at the heart of understanding the creation of the United States of America.


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AUTHOR BIO

Prof. Joseph Ellis earned his PhD from Yale in 1969 and taught at West Point before joining the faculty of Mount Holyoke College, one of the so-called “Seven Sisters” (the nation’s seven foremost all-women colleges which were highly prestigious when he became a full professor there in 1979).

His academic work concentrated on the Founding Fathers of the U.S., including biographies of our first three Presidents -- George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

His biography of Thomas Jefferson (“American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson”) won a National Book Award and another of his NY Times Bestsellers “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation” won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Prof. Ellis served as the Dean of the Faculty at Mount Holyoke 1980-1990. However, he was suspended from his endowed Ford Foundation Chair without pay in 2001 due to controversy over his service in Vietnam during the Vietnamese War, but was re-appointed to the chair in 2005. He currently teaches up the road at the main campus of U/Mass in Amherst (not to be confused with Amherst College which, during the heyday of “The Seven Sisters” all-women colleges, was an all-male college like most of the Ivy League and was just as prestigious as Smith College and Mount Holyoke, two of The Seven Sisters which were a stone’s throw away).


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BOOK REVIEW EXCERPTS

“Historian Joseph Ellis masterfully illuminates the ‘untrodden’ path, as Washington put it, that led to that crucial stage of sewing up the elements of the new country. . . . Deeply insightful.”
—New York Review of Books

“The dissenters—George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison—faced no less a task than redefining the meaning of the War for Independence in what amounted to a Second American Revolution. How they did so is the burden of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis' The Quartet, an engaging reconsideration of the arduous path to the Constitution.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Customary, graceful prose. His portraits [show] his sure touch—highlighting Washington’s dignity, Hamilton’s energy, Madison’s learning and Jay’s diplomacy.”
—New York Times Book Review

“The author is a sure-handed and entertaining guide through the thickets of argument, personality and ideology out of which the American nation emerged.”
—The Economist

“Ellis shows the extraordinary capacity of these four leaders to understand the events, discuss them dispassionately, explain them to the American people, reach compromise, rise above pettiness and sacrifice personal wealth, power and popularity for the long-term public good. Given the rarity of these qualities today, Ellis’ book is a compelling reminder of the political virtues that created the American republic.”
—Star Tribune

“This is more than just a reinterpretation of a vital transition in our history; it is a reflection of new material from an episode that occurred two and a quarter centuries ago. . . . Having set forth the analysis, Ellis plunges into the narrative. His is an inviting voice and his story compelling, built around irresistible figures who, as the annual publishing lists amply display, retain their appeal in our own time.”
—The Boston Globe

“Ellis, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for Founding Brothers, reminds us that what Catherine Drinker Bowen has called the ‘Miracle at Philadelphia’ wasn’t destiny or ordained by God. It was created by perceptive men who understood human nature, history and politics and could foresee what this country could become should its people choose to have a strong central government.”
—St. Louis Post Dispatch

“An author who breathes life into the dead and immediacy into the past, Ellis illuminates America’s rebirth, the men who made it possible and the framework they created. With rich research and intelligent interpretation, The Quartet burnishes his reputation as a writer, a thinker and a humanist.”
—Richmond Times Dispatch

“Absorbing in its details, and convincing in its arguments, The Quartet is sure to appeal to history nerds and American politicos. As another election season approaches, a look back at the creation of the government, and the reasons why these founding fathers did what they did, is sure to be engrossing reading for anyone.”
—Shelf Awareness


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We hope to see all of you on May 16th.

Your friend,

John K.

PS -- To un-subscribe, please press "reply" and type "deletion requested."

NB: Please do NOT block our e-mail because you are too embarrassed to request a deletion -- 10 of our approximately 150 regular e-mail recipients use Comcast.net which has an algorithm blocking all e-mails from a website for which a certain percentage of recipients have requested blockage AND 3 of our regular meeting attendees who use Comcast.net now can NOT receive our weekly e-mails.

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