Stacy Schiff with Tim Gunn: The Revolutionary Samuel Adams

The Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer sits down with one of her biggest fans to talk about her newest book, the revelatory life story of one of the most essential founding fathers.

“Without the character of Samuel Adams, the true history of the American Revolution can never be written,” claimed Samuel’s cousin John. A signatory to the Declaration of Independence and a mastermind of the Boston Tea Party, Samuel was, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “the earliest, most active, and persevering man of the Revolution.” Today his reputation rests largely on a muddle of rumors, misinterpretations, and a life story that went mostly unrecorded, particularly by himself. “Most of America’s founders became giants after independence,” says Stacy Schiff. “Adams began to shrink...He is the sole signer of the Declaration of Independence to come down to us as an incendiary, and a beer.”

Stacy Schiff’s new book, The Revolutionary Samuel Adams, researched in part at The New York Public Library, seeks to put Adams’s life story back together, perhaps for the first time. She talks about it with Tim Gunn.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Stacy Schiff is the author of Véra, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry; A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America; Cleopatra: A Life; and most recently, The Witches: Salem, 1692. Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library, where she has been named a Library Lion. She has contributed to The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books, among other publications.

Tim Gunn, beloved pop culture icon and New York Times bestselling author, is best known as the Emmy Award–winning host of Project Runway. He also hosted two seasons of his own Bravo makeover series, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, and was the host of the reality TV series Under the Gunn. He currently hosts Making The Cut with Heidi Klum on Amazon.

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Stacy Schiff © Elena Seibert
Tim Gunn © Scott McDermot