I am a sucker for any good book, movie, museum exhibit, national park, or monument whose subject matter is American history.  I’ve been this way from my youngest days when I would have my mom sew flags for me from scraps of cloth.  (I still have a Confederate flag that she made for me, before I knew better.)

Perhaps it’s telling, what with the national elections coming up six weeks from tomorrow, that I just finished watching the splendid, splendid, HBO series “John Adams.”

If you are at all a student of American history, or if you need something to cure the voter apathy that you may be feeling in the weeks leading up to November 6th, I highly encourage you to find this 7-part series and watch it.

Although I’m sure some liberties were taken with the minutiae of the historical details, I think it does give a good overview of the struggles of the Revolution and the way our country was knitted together when independence came.

We need to be reminded of how difficult it was for our nation to survive its early years and how personal honor and compromise were needed.  The relationship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson is particularly interesting.

I’ve included a few links to Youtube videos that  will give you a taste of just how good this series is.  I hope you’ll find them as inspiring as I do.

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrvpZxMfKaU]

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A38mW2Il48k]