Joseph John-Michael Ellis III is an American historian whose work focuses on the lives and times of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His book American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson won a National Book Award in 1997 and Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History. Both of these books were bestsellers.

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation is a 2000 book written by Joseph Ellis, a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College, which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History. It explores selected interactions among a group of individuals both gifted and flawed; interactions that profoundly influenced the early development of the United States.