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| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams Joseph J. Ellis, 2011-02-14 An absorbing, insightful profile of the revolutionary leader, president, husband, and father from one of our best historians, now in a beautiful new package. John Adams was unique among the nation’s founders in leaving a record of his most intimate thoughts and feelings. Instinctively candid and politically incisive, Adams offers the clearest view of the ambitions and principles that drove the revolutionary generation. Passionate Sage offers a brilliant introduction to the second president: his politics, his affinities for family and friendship even with political opponents like Jefferson, and his enduring significance. “Ellis’s palpable affection lends a pleasing glow to his profile of Adams, which is why Passionate Sage is his best book.”—Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review “Impassioned and erudite. . . . A captivating portrait of this Massachusetts native as a wonderfully contrary genius possessed of an uncommon moral intelligence and farsighted political wisdom.”—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times “The best portrait of a Revolutionary-era statesman.”—Evan Thomas, Wall Street Journal |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: John Adams David McCullough, 2001 Profiles John Adams, an influential patriot during the American Revolution who became the nation's first vice president and second president. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Summary of John Adams by David McCullough Readtrepreneur Publishing, 2019-05-24 John Adams by David McCullough - Book Summary - Readtrepreneur (Disclaimer: This is NOT the original book, but an unofficial summary.) The bestselling biography of one of America's founding father, an eye-catching true story that will keep you hooked right from the get-go. David McCullough unveils the story of John Adams like it has never done before. Filled with amazing anecdotes from the man who would eventually become the second president of the United States of America. To do a great biography, you need amazing research skills and a good way to keep the story entertaining and Nelson Runger does this splendidly. (Note: This summary is wholly written and published by Readtrepreneur It is not affiliated with the original author in any way) We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it. - David McCullough Learning history is a great medium to become a better person, avoiding past mistakes and absorbing the wisdom of the world's greatest. We can definitely learn a lot from John Adams' story and John Adams himself, so we don't have to see this book as solely a leisure reading title but also as a way to learn from one of America's founding fathers. David McCullough stresses that this is a great book to learn a lot about John Adams and American story. Politics, war, love, religious faith and betrayal, that's some of the elements that will be awaiting in this extraordinary book. P.S. John Adams is a great book that will sate your thirst for knowledge but also keep you entertained while doing it. The Time for Thinking is Over! Time for Action! Scroll Up Now and Click on the Buy now with 1-Click Button to Get your Copy Right Away! Why Choose Us, Readtrepreneur? ● Highest Quality Summaries ● Delivers Amazing Knowledge ● Awesome Refresher ● Clear And Concise Disclaimer Once Again: This book is meant for a great companionship of the original book or to simply get the gist of the original book. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The American Spirit David McCullough, 2017-04-18 This timely collection of speeches by David McCullough, the most honored historian in the United States--winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among many other honors--reminds us of fundamental American principles. Over the course of his distinguished career, David McCullough has spoken before Congress, the White House, colleges and universities, historical societies, and other esteemed institutions. Now, as many Americans engage in self-reflection following a bitter election campaign that has left the country divided, McCullough has collected some of his most important speeches in a brief volume that articulates important principles and characteristics that are particularly American...--Jacket. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: John Adams David McCullough, 2001-05-01 Presents a biography portraying John Adams as a brilliant, fiercely independent Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution and then rose to become the second president of the United States.#x1E. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Seventeen Seventy-six David McCullough, 2006-07-04 Chronicles the American Revolution during the year 1776, examining the leadership of George Washington and British commander William Howe and the experiences of American and British troops. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Summary: John Adams , |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Friends Divided Gordon S. Wood, 2017 A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017 From the great historian of the American Revolution, New York Times-bestselling and Pulitzer-winning Gordon Wood, comes a majestic dual biography of two of America's most enduringly fascinating figures, whose partnership helped birth a nation, and whose subsequent falling out did much to fix its course. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slaveowner, while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist view of government. They worked closely in the crucible of revolution, crafting the Declaration of Independence and leading, with Franklin, the diplomatic effort that brought France into the fight. But ultimately, their profound differences would lead to a fundamental crisis, in their friendship and in the nation writ large, as they became the figureheads of two entirely new forces, the first American political parties. It was a bitter breach, lasting through the presidential administrations of both men, and beyond. But late in life, something remarkable happened: these two men were nudged into reconciliation. What started as a grudging trickle of correspondence became a great flood, and a friendship was rekindled, over the course of hundreds of letters. In their final years they were the last surviving founding fathers and cherished their role in this mighty young republic as it approached the half century mark in 1826. At last, on the afternoon of July 4th, 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration, Adams let out a sigh and said, At least Jefferson still lives. He died soon thereafter. In fact, a few hours earlier on that same day, far to the south in his home in Monticello, Jefferson died as well. Arguably no relationship in this country's history carries as much freight as that of John Adams of Massachusetts and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Gordon Wood has more than done justice to these entwined lives and their meaning; he has written a magnificent new addition to America's collective story. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Truman David McCullough, 2003-08-20 The Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America’s beloved and distinguished historian. The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson—and dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed historian David McCullough not only captures the man—a more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before imagined—but also the turbulent times in which he rose, boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges. The last president to serve as a living link between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Truman’s story spans the raw world of the Missouri frontier, World War I, the powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the legendary Whistle-Stop Campaign of 1948, and the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, confront Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to Korea, and fire General MacArthur. Drawing on newly discovered archival material and extensive interviews with Truman’s own family, friends, and Washington colleagues, McCullough tells the deeply moving story of the seemingly ordinary “man from Missouri” who was perhaps the most courageous president in our history. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The Pioneers David McCullough, 2019-05-07 The #1 New York Times bestseller by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story that’s “as resonant today as ever” (The Wall Street Journal)—the settling of the Northwest Territory by courageous pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would define our country. As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler’s son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as floods, fires, wolves and bears, no roads or bridges, no guarantees of any sort, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people. Like so many of McCullough’s subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them. Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments. This is a revelatory and quintessentially American story, written with David McCullough’s signature narrative energy. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Brave Companions David McCullough, 2022-09-20 For more than two decades, McCullough has fascinated readers with portraits of exceptional men and women who not only have shaped the course of history but whose stories express much that is timeless about the human condition. From Harriet Beecher Stowe to a young Theodore Roosevelt, the subjects possess a sense of purpose that make for unforgettable reading. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Johnstown Flood David McCullough, 2007-05-31 The stunning story of one of America’s great disasters, a preventable tragedy of Gilded Age America, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. At the end of the nineteenth century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation’s burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal. Graced by David McCullough’s remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Mornings on Horseback David McCullough, 2007-05-31 The National Book Award–winning biography that tells the story of how young Teddy Roosevelt transformed himself from a sickly boy into the vigorous man who would become a war hero and ultimately president of the United States, told by master historian David McCullough. Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as “a masterpiece” (John A. Gable, Newsday), it is the winner of the Los Angeles Times 1981 Book Prize for Biography and the National Book Award for Biography. Written by David McCullough, the author of Truman, this is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and almost fatal asthma attacks, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household in which he was raised. The father is the first Theodore Roosevelt, a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. The mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, is a Southerner and a celebrated beauty, but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There are sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, TR’s first love. All are brought to life to make “a beautifully told story, filled with fresh detail” (The New York Times Book Review). A book to be read on many levels, it is at once an enthralling story, a brilliant social history and a work of important scholarship which does away with several old myths and breaks entirely new ground. It is a book about life intensely lived, about family love and loyalty, about grief and courage, about “blessed” mornings on horseback beneath the wide blue skies of the Badlands. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Book of Ages Jill Lepore, 2014-07-01 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR NPR • Time Magazine • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • The Boston Globe A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians—a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister, Jane, whose obscurity and poverty were matched only by her brother’s fame and wealth but who, like him, was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator. Making use of an astonishing cache of little-studied material, including documents, objects, and portraits only just discovered, Jill Lepore brings Jane Franklin to life in a way that illuminates not only this one extraordinary woman but an entire world. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The Portable John Adams John Adams, 2004-06-29 In addition to being an uncompromising defender of liberty, esteemed diplomat, and successor to George Washington, John Adams was a passionate and prolific writer. Adams biographer John Patrick Diggins gathers an impressive variety of his works in this compact, original volume, including parts of his diary and autobiography, and selections from his rich correspondence with this wife, Abigail, Thomas Jefferson, and others. The Portable John Adams also features his most important political works: “A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law,” “Thoughts on Government,” “A Defense of Constitutions,” “Novanglus,” and “Discources in Davila.” There is no finer introduction to the protean genius of this seminal American philosopher. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The Greater Journey David McCullough, 2011-05-24 The #1 bestseller that tells the remarkable story of the generations of American artists, writers, and doctors who traveled to Paris, fell in love with the city and its people, and changed America through what they learned, told by America’s master historian, David McCullough. Not all pioneers went west. In The Greater Journey, David McCullough tells the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, and others who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, hungry to learn and to excel in their work. What they achieved would profoundly alter American history. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in America, was one of this intrepid band. Another was Charles Sumner, whose encounters with black students at the Sorbonne inspired him to become the most powerful voice for abolition in the US Senate. Friends James Fenimore Cooper and Samuel F. B. Morse worked unrelentingly every day in Paris, Morse not only painting what would be his masterpiece, but also bringing home his momentous idea for the telegraph. Harriet Beecher Stowe traveled to Paris to escape the controversy generated by her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Three of the greatest American artists ever—sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, painters Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent—flourished in Paris, inspired by French masters. Almost forgotten today, the heroic American ambassador Elihu Washburne bravely remained at his post through the Franco-Prussian War, the long Siege of Paris, and the nightmare of the Commune. His vivid diary account of the starvation and suffering endured by the people of Paris is published here for the first time. Telling their stories with power and intimacy, McCullough brings us into the lives of remarkable men and women who, in Saint-Gaudens’ phrase, longed “to soar into the blue.” |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: When Books Went to War Molly Guptill Manning, 2014-12-02 This New York Times bestselling account of books parachuted to soldiers during WWII is a “cultural history that does much to explain modern America” (USA Today). When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned 100 million books. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops, gathering 20 million hardcover donations. Two years later, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million specially printed paperbacks designed for troops to carry in their pockets and rucksacks in every theater of war. These small, lightweight Armed Services Editions were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy, in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific, in field hospitals, and on long bombing flights. This pioneering project not only listed soldiers’ spirits, but also helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity and made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon. “A thoroughly engaging, enlightening, and often uplifting account . . . I was enthralled and moved.” — Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried “Whether or not you’re a book lover, you’ll be moved.” — Entertainment Weekly |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: John Quincy Adams Paul C. Nagel, 2012-12-05 February 21, 1848, the House of Representatives, Washington D.C.: Congressman John Quincy Adams, rising to speak, suddenly collapses at his desk; two days later, he dies in the Speaker’s chamber. The public mourning that followed, writes Paul C. Nagel, “exceeded anything previously seen in America. Forgotten was his failed presidency and his often cold demeanor. It was the memory of an extraordinary human being—one who in his last years had fought heroically for the right of petition and against a war to expand slavery—that drew a grateful people to salute his coffin in the Capitol and to stand by the railroad tracks as his bier was transported from Washington to Boston.” Nagel probes deeply into the psyche of this cantankerous, misanthropic, erudite, hardworking son of a former president whose remarkable career spanned many offices: minister to Holland, Russia, and England, U.S. senator, secretary of state, president of the United States (1825-1829), and, finally, U.S. representative (the only ex-president to serve in the House). On the basis of a thorough study of Adams’ seventy-year diary, among a host of other documents, the author gives us a richer account than we have yet had of JQA’s life—his passionate marriage to Louisa Johnson, his personal tragedies (two sons lost to alcoholism), his brilliant diplomacy, his recurring depression, his exasperating behavior—and shows us why, in the end, only Abraham Lincoln’s death evoked a great out-pouring of national sorrow in nineteenth-century America. We come to see how much Adams disliked politics and hoped for more from life than high office; how he sought distinction in literacy and scientific endeavors, and drew his greatest pleasure from being a poet, critic, translator, essayist, botanist, and professor of oratory at Harvard; how tension between the public and private Adams vexed his life; and how his frustration kept his masked and aloof (and unpopular). Nagel’s great achievement, in this first biography of America’s sixth president in a quarter century, is finally to portray Adams in all his talent and complexity. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Gods of the Upper Air Charles King, 2020-07-14 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Winner Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award From an award-winning historian comes a dazzling history of the birth of cultural anthropology and the adventurous scientists who pioneered it—a sweeping chronicle of discovery and the fascinating origin story of our multicultural world. A century ago, everyone knew that people were fated by their race, sex, and nationality to be more or less intelligent, nurturing, or warlike. But Columbia University professor Franz Boas looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Racial categories, he insisted, were biological fictions. Cultures did not come in neat packages labeled primitive or advanced. What counted as a family, a good meal, or even common sense was a product of history and circumstance, not of nature. In Gods of the Upper Air, a masterful narrative history of radical ideas and passionate lives, Charles King shows how these intuitions led to a fundamental reimagining of human diversity. Boas's students were some of the century's most colorful figures and unsung visionaries: Margaret Mead, the outspoken field researcher whose Coming of Age in Samoa is among the most widely read works of social science of all time; Ruth Benedict, the great love of Mead's life, whose research shaped post-Second World War Japan; Ella Deloria, the Dakota Sioux activist who preserved the traditions of Native Americans on the Great Plains; and Zora Neale Hurston, whose studies under Boas fed directly into her now classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Together, they mapped civilizations from the American South to the South Pacific and from Caribbean islands to Manhattan's city streets, and unearthed an essential fact buried by centuries of prejudice: that humanity is an undivided whole. Their revolutionary findings would go on to inspire the fluid conceptions of identity we know today. Rich in drama, conflict, friendship, and love, Gods of the Upper Air is a brilliant and groundbreaking history of American progress and the opening of the modern mind. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: This Chair Rocks Ashton Applewhite, 2019-03-05 Author, activist, and TED speaker Ashton Applewhite has written a rousing manifesto calling for an end to discrimination and prejudice on the basis of age. In our youth obsessed culture, we’re bombarded by media images and messages about the despairs and declines of our later years. Beauty and pharmaceutical companies work overtime to convince people to purchase products that will retain their youthful appearance and vitality. Wrinkles are embarrassing. Gray hair should be colored and bald heads covered with implants. Older minds and bodies are too frail to keep up with the pace of the modern working world and olders should just step aside for the new generation. Ashton Applewhite once held these beliefs too until she realized where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. Lively, funny, and deeply researched, This Chair Rocks traces her journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life. Explaining the roots of ageism in history and how it divides and debases, Applewhite examines how ageist stereotypes cripple the way our brains and bodies function, looks at ageism in the workplace and the bedroom, exposes the cost of the all-American myth of independence, critiques the portrayal of elders as burdens to society, describes what an all-age-friendly world would look like, and offers a rousing call to action. It’s time to create a world of age equality by making discrimination on the basis of age as unacceptable as any other kind of bias. Whether you’re older or hoping to get there, this book will shake you by the shoulders, cheer you up, make you mad, and change the way you see the rest of your life. Age pride! “Wow. This book totally rocks. It arrived on a day when I was in deep confusion and sadness about my age. Everything about it, from my invisibility to my neck. Within four or five wise, passionate pages, I had found insight, illumination, and inspiration. I never use the word empower, but this book has empowered me.” —Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The Great Bridge David McCullough, 2001-06 First published in 1972, The Great Bridge is the classic account of one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. Winning acclaim for its comprehensive look at the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, this book helped cement David McCullough's reputation as America's preeminent social historian. Now, The Great Bridge is reissued as a Simon & Schuster Classic Edition with a new introduction by the author. This monumental book brings back for American readers the heroic vision of the America we once had. It is the enthralling story of one of the greatest events in our nation's history during the Age of Optimism -- a period when Americans were convinced in their hearts that all great things were possible. In the years around 1870, when the project was first undertaken, the concept of building a great bridge to span the East River between the great cities of Manhattan and Brooklyn required a vision and determination comparable to that which went into the building of the pyramids. Throughout the fourteen years of its construction, the odds against the successful completion of the bridge seemed staggering. Bodies were crushed and broken, lives lost, political empires fell, and surges of public emotion constantly threatened the project. But this is not merely the saga of an engineering miracle: it is a sweeping narrative of the social climate of the time and of the heroes and rascals who had a hand in either constructing or obstructing the great enterprise. Amid the flood of praise for the book when it was originally published, Newsday said succinctly This is the definitive book on the event. Do not wait for a better try: there won't be any. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The Broken Heart of America Walter Johnson, 2020-04-14 A searing portrait of the racial dynamics that lie inescapably at the heart of our nation, told through the turbulent history of the city of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike—a legacy of resistance that endures. A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United States. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: John Adams Hourly History, 2016-12-26 John AdamsThe drama of the life of the second president of the United States has been stirringly chronicled both in print and on television. Yet the life of John Adams is so rich in history, emotion, power, and tragedy that no medium can entirely contain its essence. Reading the story of his life is to be introduced to a nation, new and untried, that would rise to prominence in no small part due to his legacy of leadership. Inside you will read about...✓ John Adams, the Farmer's Son ✓ John Adams Begins His Career ✓ The Man from Massachusetts ✓ Adams in Philadelphia ✓ Destination Europe ✓ An Experiment in Nationhood ✓ President ✓ A Friendship Restored John Adams was no bland hero; he had his personal blemishes, and he made his share of mistakes. He was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and died a citizen of the United States. Along with his wife, the impressive Abigail Smith Adams, the minister's daughter whose lack of formal education did not hinder her intellectual advances, John Adams sired a political dynasty that served the United States well. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The Wright Brothers Leopard Books, 2016-03-09 The Wright Brothers by David McCullough | A 15-Minute Summary & Analysis Preview:In the outskirts of North Carolina, on a small hamlet barely inhabitable and just shy of the stone age, history would take a flying leap into the vast unknown. A daring gamble that would test the very limits of the possible and for once cement the notion that conquering impossibility was just one risk away. On 1903, on a remote spot of land, besieged by winds and winter weather, modern age of aviation was born. Kitty Hawk secured its spot in the annals of history when two adventurous brothers overcame gravity and proved that flight was no longer the sole domain of the birds. Their names were Wilbur and Orville, and they would forever be called The Wright Brothers.David McCullough's latest book once more proves that the Pulitzer garnered writer is not only a force to be reckoned with, but quite possibly the absolute authority as far as historical fictions are concerned. His meticulous, almost painstaking study into the lives of the two pioneering auto-didactics that rewrote the laws of aerodynamics is nothing short of a thrilling romance set in an a particular age; the age of invention. A romance of men and creativity. A period in American history where the outflow of patents and breakthroughs flowed like honey onto a continuously gobsmacked nation. PLEASE NOTE: This is a Summary and Analysis of the book and NOT the original book. This companion includes the following: - Book Review- Character List- Summary of the Chapters- Discussion Questions- Analysis of Themes & Symbols This Analysis fills the gap, making you understand more while enhancing your reading experience. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez, 2020-06-23 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The “paradigm-influencing” book (Christianity Today) that is fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping, revisionist history of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism—or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.” As acclaimed scholar Kristin Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals might not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Trump in fact represented the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values: patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community. A much-needed reexamination of perhaps the most influential subculture in this country, Jesus and John Wayne shows that, far from adhering to biblical principles, modern white evangelicals have remade their faith, with enduring consequences for all Americans. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Little Man, Little Man James Baldwin, 2018 Now available for the first time in nearly 40 years. Baldwin's only children's book follows the day-to-day life of four-year-old TJ and his friends in their Harlem neighborhood as they encounter the social realities of being black in America in the 1970s. Full color. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: John Adams John Ferling, 2010-02-09 John Ferling has nearly forty years of experience as a historian of early America. The author of acclaimed histories such as A Leap into the Dark and Almost a Miracle, he has appeared on many TV and film documentaries on this pivotal period of our history. In John Adams: A Life, Ferling offers a compelling portrait of one of the giants of the Revolutionary era. Drawing on extensive research, Ferling depicts a reluctant revolutionary, a leader who was deeply troubled by the warfare that he helped to make, and a fiercely independent statesman. The book brings to life an exciting time, an age in which Adams played an important political and intellectual role. Indeed, few were more instrumental in making American independence a reality. He performed yeoman's service in the Continental Congress during the revolution and was a key figure in negotiating the treaty that brought peace following the long War of Independence. He held the highest office in the land and as president he courageously chose to pursue a course that he thought best for the nation, though it was fraught with personal political dangers. Adams emerges here a man full of contradictions. He could be petty and jealous, but also meditative, insightful, and provocative. In private and with friends he could be engagingly witty. He was terribly self-centered, but in his relationship with his wife and children his shortcomings were tempered by a deep, abiding love. John Ferling's masterful John Adams: A Life is a singular biography of the man who succeeded George Washington in the presidency and shepherded the fragile new nation through the most dangerous of times. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty C. Bradley Thompson, 1998-11-16 America's finest eighteenth-century student of political science, John Adams is also the least studied of the Revolution's key figures. By the time he became our second president, no American had written more about our government and not even Jefferson or Madison had read as widely about questions of human nature, natural right, political organization, and constitutional construction. Yet this staunch constitutionalist is perceived by many as having become reactionary in his later years and his ideas have been largely disregarded. In the first major work on Adams's political thought in over thirty years, C. Bradley Thompson takes issue with the notion that Adams's thought is irrelevant to the development of American ideas. Focusing on Adams's major writings, Thompson elucidates and reevaluates his political and constitutional thought by interpreting it within the tradition of political philosophy stretching from Plato to Montesquieu. This major revisionist study shows that the distinction Adams drew between principles of liberty and principles of political architecture is central to his entire political philosophy. Thompson first chronicles Adams's conceptualization of moral and political liberty during his confrontation with American Loyalists and British imperial officers over the true nature of justice and the British Constitution, illuminating Adams's two most important pre-Revolutionary essays, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law and The Letters of Novanglus. He then presents Adams's debate with French philosophers over the best form of government and provides an extended analysis of his Defence of the Constitutions of Government and Discourses on Davila to demonstrate his theory of political architecture. From these pages emerges a new John Adams. In reexamining his political thought, Thompson reconstructs the contours and influences of Adams's mental universe, the ideas he challenged, the problems he considered central to constitution-making, and the methods of his reasoning. Skillfully blending history and political science, Thompson's work shows how the spirit of liberty animated Adams's life and reestablishes this forgotten Revolutionary as an independent and important thinker. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Power and Liberty Gordon S. Wood, 2021 Written by one of early America's most eminent historians, this book masterfully discusses the debates over constitutionalism that took place in the Revolutionary era. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: His Truth Is Marching On Jon Meacham, 2020-08-25 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime U.S. congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Soul of America “An extraordinary man who deserves our everlasting admiration and gratitude.”—The Washington Post ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST AND COSMOPOLITAN’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was a visionary and a man of faith. Drawing on decades of wide-ranging interviews with Lewis, Jon Meacham writes of how this great-grandson of a slave and son of an Alabama tenant farmer was inspired by the Bible and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., to put his life on the line in the service of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” From an early age, Lewis learned that nonviolence was not only a tactic but a philosophy, a biblical imperative, and a transforming reality. At the age of four, Lewis, ambitious to become a minister, practiced by preaching to his family’s chickens. When his mother cooked one of the chickens, the boy refused to eat it—his first act, he wryly recalled, of nonviolent protest. Integral to Lewis’s commitment to bettering the nation was his faith in humanity and in God—and an unshakable belief in the power of hope. Meacham calls Lewis “as important to the founding of a modern and multiethnic twentieth- and twenty-first-century America as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Samuel Adams were to the initial creation of the Republic itself in the eighteenth century.” A believer in the injunction that one should love one's neighbor as oneself, Lewis was arguably a saint in our time, risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful. In many ways he brought a still-evolving nation closer to realizing its ideals, and his story offers inspiration and illumination for Americans today who are working for social and political change. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Sophia's War Avi, 2012 A beloved Newbery Medalist pens a gripping adventure set during the Revolutionary War. After witnessing the execution of Nathan Hale in New York City, newly occupied by the British army, Sophia Calderwood resolves to do all she can to help the American cause, including becoming a spy. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Captivating John Eldredge, Stasi Eldredge, 2022-08-16 What Wild at Heart did for men, Captivating is doing for women. Setting their hearts free. This groundbreaking book shows readers the glorious design of women before the fall, describes how the feminine heart can be restored, and casts a vision for the power, freedom, and beauty of a woman released to be all she was meant to be. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The Course of Human Events David McCullough, 2009-12-01 Forty years after his first book, David McCullough wrote and presented his speech, The Course of Human Events, in the 2003 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, in which he divulges his philosophy on writing, speaking, and history in his masterful storytelling style. In this Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, David McCullough draws on his personal experience as a historian to acknowledge the crucial importance of writing in history’s enduring impact and influence, and he affirms the significance of history in teaching us about human nature through the ages. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: My Dearest Friend Abigail Adams, John Adams, 2010-11-15 “A wonderfully vivid account of the momentous era they lived through, underscoring the chaotic, often improvisatory circumstances that attended the birth of the fledgling nation and the hardships of daily life.” —Michiko Kakutani, New York Times In 1762, John Adams penned a flirtatious note to “Miss Adorable,” the 17-year-old Abigail Smith. In 1801, Abigail wrote to wish her husband John a safe journey as he headed home to Quincy after serving as president of the nation he helped create. The letters that span these nearly forty years form the most significant correspondence—and reveal one of the most intriguing and inspiring partnerships—in American history. As a pivotal player in the American Revolution and the early republic, John had a front-row seat at critical moments in the creation of the United States, from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to negotiating peace with Great Britain to serving as the first vice president and second president under the U.S. Constitution. Separated more often than they were together during this founding era, John and Abigail shared their lives through letters that each addressed to “My Dearest Friend,” debating ideas and commenting on current events while attending to the concerns of raising their children (including a future president). Full of keen observations and articulate commentary on world events, these letters are also remarkably intimate. This new collection—including some letters never before published—invites readers to experience the founding of a nation and the partnership of two strong individuals, in their own words. This is history at its most authentic and most engaging. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Revolutionary Characters Gordon S. Wood, 2006-05-18 In this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, What made these men great? and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of each—Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine—is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these portraits together is the idea of character as a lived reality. They were members of the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made men who understood that the arc of lives, as of nations, is one of moral progress. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The Fifth of March Ann Rinaldi, 1993-11-30 “Carefully researched and lovingly written, Rinaldi’s latest presents a girl indentured to John and Abigail Adams during the tense period surrounding the 1770 Massacre. . . . Fortuitously timed, a novel that illuminates a moment from our past that has strong parallels to recent events. Bibliography.”—Kirkus Reviews |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Before Columbus Charles C. Mann, Rebecca Stefoff, 2009-09-08 A companion book for young readers based upon the explorations of the Americas in 1491, before those of Christopher Columbus. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor Richard R. Beeman, 2013-05-07 Describes the political, diplomatic, and military challenges faced by the delegates from the 13 colonies at the Continental Congress and how they came together to agree to free themselves from British rule and forge independence for America. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: A Piece of the World Christina Baker Kline, 2017-02-21 INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A must-read for anyone who loves history and art.” --Kristin Hannah From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the smash bestseller Orphan Train, a stunning and atmospheric novel of friendship, passion, and art, inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s mysterious and iconic painting Christina’s World. Later he told me that he’d been afraid to show me the painting. He thought I wouldn’t like the way he portrayed me: dragging myself across the field, fingers clutching dirt, my legs twisted behind. The arid moonscape of wheatgrass and timothy. That dilapidated house in the distance, looming up like a secret that won’t stay hidden. To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century. As she did in her beloved smash bestseller Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America’s history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, she vividly imagines the life of a woman with a complicated relationship to her family and her past, and a special bond with one of our greatest modern artists. Told in evocative and lucid prose, A Piece of the World is a story about the burdens and blessings of family history, and how artist and muse can come together to forge a new and timeless legacy. |
| john adams by david mccullough sparknotes: The Wright Brothers David McCullough, 2015-05-05 The #1 New York Times bestseller from David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize—the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly—Wilbur and Orville Wright. On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two brothers—bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio—changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe that the age of flight had begun, with the first powered machine carrying a pilot. Orville and Wilbur Wright were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity. When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education and little money never stopped them in their mission to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off, they risked being killed. In this “enjoyable, fast-paced tale” (The Economist), master historian David McCullough “shows as never before how two Ohio boys from a remarkable family taught the world to fly” (The Washington Post) and “captures the marvel of what the Wrights accomplished” (The Wall Street Journal). He draws on the extensive Wright family papers to profile not only the brothers but their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them. Essential reading, this is “a story of timeless importance, told with uncommon empathy and fluency…about what might be the most astonishing feat mankind has ever accomplished…The Wright Brothers soars” (The New York Times Book Review). |
John Adams Study Guide - SparkNotes
Read a comprehensive biography of John Adams’s life, including major events, key people and terms, and important achievements.
McCullough (David) John Adams Summary - McGoodwin
Chapter 1: The Road to Philadelphia. John Adams (JA) was from Braintree MA. Attended Harvard, read law, admitted to bar 1759 loved books (incl. Cicero). Father died 1761.
John Adams Summary | SuperSummary
David McCullough’s award-winning biography, John Adams (2001), was the primary source for the HBO miniseries about the life of John Adams that premiered in 2008. According to McCullough, …
John Adams Summary & Study Guide - BookRags.com
John Adams Summary & Study Guide includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis, quotes, character descriptions, themes, and more.
Summary and Reviews of John Adams by David McCullough
1 May 2001 · In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee …
Review of “John Adams” by David McCullough | My Journey …
9 Feb 2013 · “John Adams” is the 2001 narrative biography of our nation’s second president, written by author and historian David McCullough. Of the seven John Adams biographies in my …
John Adams Summary of Key Ideas and Review | David McCullough …
John Adams by David McCullough breathes life into the personal and political journey of America's remarkable second president, offering a nuanced portrait of a deeply principled and influential …
Book Club Discussion Questions for John Adams by David McCullough
1 May 2001 · How has his relationship with Abigail influenced his admiration for French women? Would you call john Adams a feminist? Why or why not? Give examples. John Adams led an …
John Adams by David McCullough - Goodreads
1 May 2001 · In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee …
David McCullough John Adams Book Review | The New Republic
2 Jul 2001 · The paucity of McCullough’s picturesque characterological approach to the past is underscored by his life of John Adams. For Adams is a well-studied historical figure about whom …
John Adams (book) - Wikipedia
John Adams. is a 2001 biography of the Founding Father and second U.S. President John Adams, written by the popular American historian David McCullough, which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize …
John Adams by David McCullough Book Summary - BookNotesAI
Delve into the life and legacy of one of America’s founding fathers, John Adams, through David McCullough’s captivating narrative. Understand the pivotal role John Adams played in shaping …
John Adams by David McCullough - leaderself.com
12 Sep 2023 · John Adams is a biography written by David McCullough that chronicles the life and career of the second President of the United States, John Adams. The book provides a …
John Adams - Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis
John Adams - Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis David McCullough This Study Guide consists of approximately 110 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - …
John Adams - Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis
John Adams - Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis David McCullough This Study Guide consists of approximately 110 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - …
1776 Study Guide | Literature Guide - LitCharts
24 May 2005 · In John Adams, McCullough writes about the Revolutionary War from the perspective of the idealists and politicians who organized it, whereas 1776 is more focused on …
John Adams Suggestions for Further Reading - SparkNotes
Read a comprehensive biography of John Adams’s life, including major events, key people and terms, and important achievements.
John Adams by David McCullough — American History Project
McCullough's John Adams is a first-rate narrative biography, and an absolutely incredible adventure story about one of America’s most fascinating founders.
Book Summary John Adams , by David McCullough - Shortform
John Adams by David McCullough follows one of America's founding fathers as he champions independence, forges daring diplomatic ties with European allies, and endeavors to shelter his …
John Adams - David McCullough - Google Books
John Adams. The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling biography of America’s founding father and second president that was the basis for the acclaimed HBO series, brilliantly told by master …
John Adams Study Guide - SparkNotes
Read a comprehensive biography of John Adams’s life, including major events, key people and terms, and important achievements.
McCullough (David) John Adams Summary - McGoodwin
Chapter 1: The Road to Philadelphia. John Adams (JA) was from Braintree MA. Attended Harvard, read law, admitted to bar 1759 loved books (incl. Cicero). Father died 1761.
John Adams Summary | SuperSummary
David McCullough’s award-winning biography, John Adams (2001), was the primary source for the HBO miniseries about the life of John Adams that premiered in 2008. According to McCullough, he originally intended the biography to include the lives of both John and Thomas Jefferson, but after uncovering a large trove of letters between John and ...
John Adams Summary & Study Guide - BookRags.com
John Adams Summary & Study Guide includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis, quotes, character descriptions, themes, and more.
Summary and Reviews of John Adams by David McCullough
1 May 2001 · In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot -- "the colossus of independence," as Thomas Jefferson called him -- who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second ...
Review of “John Adams” by David McCullough | My Journey …
9 Feb 2013 · “John Adams” is the 2001 narrative biography of our nation’s second president, written by author and historian David McCullough. Of the seven John Adams biographies in my library, McCullough’s “John Adams” is the most popular by an enormous margin, and is widely considered one of the best presidential biographies ever written.
John Adams Summary of Key Ideas and Review | David McCullough …
John Adams by David McCullough breathes life into the personal and political journey of America's remarkable second president, offering a nuanced portrait of a deeply principled and influential statesman.
Book Club Discussion Questions for John Adams by David McCullough
1 May 2001 · How has his relationship with Abigail influenced his admiration for French women? Would you call john Adams a feminist? Why or why not? Give examples. John Adams led an obstinate quest to gather military and economic support from both the French and Dutch governments with little financial or moral support from Congress.
John Adams by David McCullough - Goodreads
1 May 2001 · In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot -- "the colossus of independence," as Thomas Jefferson called him -- who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second ...
David McCullough John Adams Book Review | The New Republic
2 Jul 2001 · The paucity of McCullough’s picturesque characterological approach to the past is underscored by his life of John Adams. For Adams is a well-studied historical figure about whom McCullough...
John Adams (book) - Wikipedia
John Adams. is a 2001 biography of the Founding Father and second U.S. President John Adams, written by the popular American historian David McCullough, which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. It was adapted into the 2008 television miniseries of the same name by HBO Films.
John Adams by David McCullough Book Summary - BookNotesAI
Delve into the life and legacy of one of America’s founding fathers, John Adams, through David McCullough’s captivating narrative. Understand the pivotal role John Adams played in shaping American history and democracy, offering insights into the complexities of leadership and the pursuit of liberty.
John Adams by David McCullough - leaderself.com
12 Sep 2023 · John Adams is a biography written by David McCullough that chronicles the life and career of the second President of the United States, John Adams. The book provides a comprehensive and detailed account of Adams' life, from his childhood in Braintree, Massachusetts, to his role in the American Revolution, his presidency, and his later years.
John Adams - Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis
John Adams - Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis David McCullough This Study Guide consists of approximately 110 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of John Adams.
John Adams - Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis
John Adams - Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis David McCullough This Study Guide consists of approximately 110 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of John Adams.
1776 Study Guide | Literature Guide - LitCharts
24 May 2005 · In John Adams, McCullough writes about the Revolutionary War from the perspective of the idealists and politicians who organized it, whereas 1776 is more focused on the soldiers and generals who fought in battle.
John Adams Suggestions for Further Reading - SparkNotes
Read a comprehensive biography of John Adams’s life, including major events, key people and terms, and important achievements.
John Adams by David McCullough — American History Project
McCullough's John Adams is a first-rate narrative biography, and an absolutely incredible adventure story about one of America’s most fascinating founders.
Book Summary John Adams , by David McCullough - Shortform
John Adams by David McCullough follows one of America's founding fathers as he champions independence, forges daring diplomatic ties with European allies, and endeavors to shelter his loved ones from the turmoil. Adams' uncompromising principles reverberate through the birth of a nation, as he emerges as an unshakable patriot and vital ...
John Adams - David McCullough - Google Books
John Adams. The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling biography of America’s founding father and second president that was the basis for the acclaimed HBO series, brilliantly told by master historian...
