Thinking Big About John Adams

I’m watching the new HBO miniseries “John Adams” and finding it fascinating. The series is based on a book by Pulitzer Prize winning historian David McCullough (also author of 1776 and Truman). And below we have McCullough giving us, if you will, the quick elevator pitch for Adams — that is, two minutes on what made Adams a particularly noteworthy founding father. (The video, by the way, is produced by BigThink, a fairly new site that positions itself as the “thinking man’s YouTube.” They’re backed by Harvard’s ex-president, Larry Summers, and other folks with deep pockets. Whether they’ll be able to turn a profit on intellectual media, I’m sadly doubtful. But that’s not meant to take anything away from what they’re doing. And if anyone wants to throw a few million dollars our way, we’ll consider taking it.)

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