The monumental life of Benjamin Rush, medical pioneer and one of our most provocative and unsung Founding Fathers

By the time he was 30, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin’s protégé and become John Adams’ confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington’s surgeon general. And as with the greatest Revolutionary minds, Rush was only just beginning his role in 1776 in the American experiment. As the new republic coalesced, he became a visionary writer and reformer; a medical pioneer whose insights and reforms revolutionized the treatment of mental illness; an opponent of slavery and prejudice by race, religion or gender; an adviser to, and often the physician of, America’s first leaders; and “the American Hippocrates.”

RUSH reveals his singular life and towering legacy, installing him in the pantheon of our wisest and boldest Founding Fathers.