In Conversation with Jeffrey Rosen

We are honored to host National Constitution Center CEO and President Jeffrey Rosen for an unforgettable and truly inspirational event. (This will be a ticketed event. Event details coming soon.) His novel, The Pursuit of Happiness,  explores the profound connection between classical philosophy and America's founding principles. By tracing the influence of thinkers like Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca on key figures such as Jefferson and Franklin, Rosen reveals how ancient wisdom shaped the vision for a new nation. This novel is a fascinating examination of what "the pursuit of happiness" meant to the nation's Founders--Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, in particular--and how that famous phrase defined their lives. The Pursuit of Happiness is more than an elucidation of the Declaration's famous phrase; it is a revelatory journey into the minds of the Founders, and a deep, rich, and fresh understanding of the foundation of our democracy. The most influential of the Founders read many of the same Greek and Roman writers and philosophers, as well as the 17th and 18th-century Enlightenment philosophers--themselves students of the classical writers--from whom they learned that the goal of a fulfilling life was to cultivate virtue by mastering one's emotions in the service of reason. ABOUT the author: Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer.