American Ideals: Founding a "Republic of Virtue"

Robinson does an outstanding job of explaining the American Revolution. He carefully explains all the factions: Revolutionary versus Royalist, Federalist versus Anti-Federalist, North versus South and many others. He brings alive the key player: Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and

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Hamilton. L liked learning that Jefferson thought that three key figures in history were Newton, Locke and Bacon whereas Hamilton thought Julius Caesar to be most important. the important role that the Scottish Enlightment played on revolutionary America was most interesting. Finally, as a bibliomaniac I was interested to find that John Adams books were much more heavily used than Jefferson's books and that America, with a population much less than England, bought more books than all of England in the 1760s.

I am sure I will listen to this series again, and I have started reading one of the essential references cited by Professor Robinson: E Pluribus Unum by Forrest Macdonald. I can highly recommend this series to those who want to learn more about the history and philosophy of the American revolutionary period.

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