Pulitzer-Prize winning author Joseph J. Ellis and the Library’s Steve Woolfolk discuss his newest book, The Cause: the American Revolution and its Discontents: 1773-1783. The discussion promises to be as lively as the action-packed scenes in his work. Though his scholarship is tightly focused on the years leading up to the establishment of the United States, his storytelling vividly enlivens historical debates about the origins and meaning of what would become known as the Revolutionary War. 

Ellis explains that colonists used the term “the cause” when referring to the revolutionary work that was afoot at the time and what made that broad label so appropriate. His narrative on this period in American history takes into account both Black and white viewpoints as well as the political in-fighting over varying ideologies and goals that those groups faced. 

The bestselling author has written 12 other books, including the Founding Brothers and American Sphinx, which won the National Book Award. He lives in New England. Steve Woolfolk is the director of programming and marketing at the Kansas City Public Library.