so, priestley is scared. he dodges this bullet and then several years later jefferson is elected president and one of the first things he does is he whites joseph priestley a letter to read he gets word priestley has been quite seriously ill in pennsylvania's one of his first written acts is to write a letter and he writes an amazing letter you should read it in its entirety. i won't do that, but it effectively would initially say i've heard you were ill and i'm glad you are recovered. yours is one of the great lives all thinking people want to see continue. you are one of my great heroes. then he goes on to talk about how horrible the adams administration is and basically to apologize for priestley's treatment and he talks about how the adams administration was all about looking backward and forward and it was against the innovation of science that he and priestley understood that this was a forward looking country and was not about the education of ancestors whereas adams was all about that old stuff and th

. >> i stumbled across this story about joseph priestley and i had known a little bit about priestly like most people i think i had heard of him as the guy that discovered oxygen for the first time. and for those of you that no story and have had a chance to look at the book while that is his reputation is a little strange because he didn't actually do first and he kind of got it wrong in fundamental ways when he did do it but for some reason that is the line that has kind of stuck with him and that is the first sentence of his britannica entry and wikipedia is he's the guy the discovered oxygen. but i found this other interesting thing about him which i think he deserves a lot more credit for in part of this book as evangelizing this one discovery of his career which is he was the first person to realize that plans for creating oxygen. >> host: michigan we go and this is jesse on the independent lane three averitt nonfiction book of to the some nine. >> caller: good morning, mary christmas. my favorite book is called hot, flat and crowded by thomas friedman of the world is flat. it

. >> i stumbled across this story about joseph priestley and i knew a little bit about briefly. like most people i think i'd heard about him is the guy who i discovered oxygen for the first time. and for those of you who know the story of had a chance to look at the book. that is his representation as he didn't do didn't do a first in a kind of got it wrong in some fundamental ways than he did do it. but for some reason that the line that is kind of stuck within and that's the first sentence of his britannica entry in his wikipedia entry is he the guy who discovered oxygen. i found out this other very interesting thing about him which i think he deserves a lot more credit for an part of this book is evangelizing this one discovery of his career, which is that he was the first person to realize that plans were creating oxygen. >> host: to michigan we go and this is just on our independent line. her favorite nonfiction book of 2009. >> caller: good morning, merry christmas. my favorite book is called thomas freedman, the world is flat. it has marvelous theories about putting much