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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