how do white differ from david mccullough? my emphasis-- i think david mccullough's john adams has been not only a service to john adams but to all of us. john adams was the least known of all of the founding fathers until mccauliffe's book. there were a few biography of adams but mccullough's book brought him to attention and since that time-- there have been a couple of television programs as you note and so forth, so it is a very wonderful book. and he gets john adams bob on from the first paragraph where he has john adams on a horse in a snowstorm writing from quincy, massachusetts to boston talking and talking and talking and that to me is john adams spot on. the mouth talking in every circumstance, inventively, creatively. mcculloch also likes abigail a great deal, but she is a subordinative figure in the book. she shows up only as a complement to john adams, and he doesn't give her what i call agency. that is, she reacts throughout the book. she-- you don't see her as an innovator. for instance, this passage that i just

i read edmund morris's biography and david mccullough's. in 1992 i had a program called "the magic bus. i went to north dakota in the badlands, the western edge. that is where he spent his ranging days, a theater roosevelt. he wrote an incredible book called "the wilderness hunter." there was an incredibly informed writing about the biology, the ecosystem of the badlands. he knew more about the badlands than any person alive 100 years ago. i fell in love with that particular american landscape. i was teaching at hofstra university with the late jon gabel, a professor to died of cancer, john and i posted a presidential conference. i was co-chair on theater roosevelt. i had papers coming in from everywhere. john helped me realize there had never been a book written on theater roosevelt on conservation. there was an diversity pres forum of a little bit of notes. i had a great opening there. i realized that between the civil war, the emancipation proclamation, and the second -- the first world war, roosevelt using the white house to promote con