I could think of tons of examples of paintings I loved, or books that brought me to tears. I wracked my brain for art or books that had a legal element. They required an additional writing sample with the prompt: “Describe a picture of literature or art that inspired you to study the law.” It was a brilliant question because it was utterly impossible to bullshit.Īnd boy did I try. Then, one night my senior year in college, I was trying to finish my final application-for the University of Pennsylvania. Girls are blowing past boys in school, and while most men are poorer than they… I spent years competing at mock trial, I took any constitutional history and pre-law classes I could find in college, took the LSAT, applied to law schools, and got into several excellent options. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out that book would stick with me in ways I couldn’t possibly imagine.Īlthough I adored history, teenage-me was going to be a lawyer. I loved the John Adams I found in McCullough’s words-stubborn, self-righteous, insecure, virtuous, and utterly devoted to his fiercely intelligent wife.

I think someone gave a copy of John Adams to my dad as a gift the next year, and like a typical teenager, I decided it was mine. But he didn’t become a real cultural touchstone until 2001, when he published John Adams. His voice, if not his name, was familiar to many Americans as the narrator of many programs on PBS, most famously Ken Burns’s 1990 documentary series The Civil War. They don’t have to.īetween 19, David McCullough had written six books and racked up a slew of awards, including the National Book Award (twice) and the Pulitzer Prize. They never include the full title, the author’s name, or the title of the HBO miniseries. These are the first questions I receive anytime I tell anyone I’m writing a book on John Adams. “Have you read John Adams? What do you think of the miniseries?”

John adams author david mccullough