# @alkemy.x on Facebook

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.facebook.com/1508187694641048/posts/2612465115644252
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/55144894-alkemyx-facebook
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- **Posted:** 2018-08-27T13:20:27.000+00:00

## Caption

Today we bring you a #LabDay from Alkemy X Senior Account Director, Keith Rauch! As our resident history buff, Keith recently finished a 500 page book…and he has some thoughts! 

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For me, history, particularly American History is so much more than dates and old textbooks. It’s about the stories that made us who we are. 

Working in a city like Philadelphia, steps away from where it all started, is undeniably thrilling for the history geek in me. I am particularly fascinated by the men and women who shaped our country’s early history. 

I recently completed Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson written by a man considered the foremost expert on the Revolutionary period; Gordon Wood. A fascinating look at the most influential revolutionary duo next to Washington & Hamilton, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Wood’s skillfully analyzes their differences and how those differences shaped our government in the early years. By far the most fascinating part of the book is the story of Adams & Jefferson’s reconnection. After several years of not speaking due to the bitter election of 1800, in 1812 at the urging of their mutual acquaintance, Dr. Benjamin Rush (a true Philly native), they reconnected and kicked off a correspondence that provides one of the most captivating exchanges between two titans of the Founding generation. 

Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson is definitely worth a read if only to have a true appreciation of the battles, intellectual and otherwise, that helped forge a nation.  Even if you don’t typically read history books, I encourage you to start if only to get a fuller sense, warts and all, of the Founding Generation. 

As Winston Churchill reminded us in a darker time, “We didn’t come this far because we are made of sugar candy.”  Understanding our past will help carry us into the future.

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