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John Adams (2008)

I'm watching the HBO 7 part special about John Adams. The wikipedia entry is interesting, I'm kind of ashamed I don't know much about him.

Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney are quite good. 

Joanne Freeman suggests you remember that they didn't know what was going to happen and that the conditionality of the unknown future does make it more dramatic. 

The most recently history I studied was Transcendentalists, Emerson, Thoreau and Fuller. Thoreau entered Harvard in 1833, John Adams started in 1751. We're going back in time here. Thoreau was born in 1817, the year after they didn't a summer in 1816. His mother didn't drink tea, and I wonder if that's a legacy of the revolution or if it's thrift. 

He felt bad he didn't join the French and Indian War. He's the only founder who didn't own slaves.


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