Tom Ricks spent decades as a journalist, including covering the U.S. military for newspapers and writing books about the war in Iraq.

Then he decided to take a step back, moving to an island in Maine where he's been reading the words of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others.

He says it's important to read the works of these founders, "because we still live in the house they designed."

Ricks has written a book called First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country.

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