First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

by Thomas E. Ricks

They did on occasion look with admiration on the Greeks, but when they did, it was more often toward Sparta than Athens. They saw the Spartans as plainspoken, simple, free, and stable, while they disparaged the Athenians as turbulent, factionalized, and flighty.13

“They” are either the four subjects of this book, or American revolutionaries in general.