Welcome back to Significant Others. First of all, I want to say a gigantic thank you to everyone

who listened to any part of season one. It's so nice to know I'm not the only one who finds these

stories fascinating, and I have to say I'm getting very excited about season two, but it's still

a ways off. And while I'm deep in research and writing mode, I didn't want to let too much time

go by without bringing you some kind of story of a person who's been misrepresented or misunderstood

by history. So we're putting out a few bonus interviews with folks who have something interesting

to share along those lines. Lucky for us, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacey Schiff, who you may

remember from the season one episode on Verna Bokoff, has a new book out that fits the bill perfectly,

and she has graciously agreed to come and talk to us about it. It's called The Revolutionary,

and it tells the story of a man without whom the American Revolution might not have happened,

yet he has nearly been scrubbed from the record of it by his own hand. Stacey, thank you so much

for being here. Thanks so much for having me back, Liza. So on this podcast, we usually focus on

people who've been overlooked or overshadowed historically speaking, but Samuel Adams, who's the

subject of your new book, wasn't overlooked so much as he removed himself from view. His cousin,

John Adams, is far better known, obviously, but you reveal that, in fact, it was Samuel Adams,

maybe more than any of the other founding fathers who was the prime mover of the Revolution.

Is that right? Absolutely, and it was that sort of disequilibrium that I was trying to correct

because he is so, he loomed so large in the story at the time and in the accounts of his contemporaries.

And then he's totally gone from the picture by the time we look back at it. So what did we all get

wrong in a nutshell, if you can, what's the truer story? Samuel Adams pretty much

enters the stage with the opposition to the Stamp Act and is entrusted by the Massachusetts House

of Representatives with the Massachusetts reaction, the Massachusetts response to the Stamp Act.

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