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John Adams (2001)

John Adams (2001)

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Rating
4.07 of 5 Votes: 4
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ISBN
0743223136 (ISBN13: 9780743223133)
Language
English
Publisher
simon & schuster paperbacks

About book John Adams (2001)

Wheeeeeere's Johnny? Thanks to David McCullough's 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning biography Adams will no longer be overlooked as a lesser president of the United States.Although our currency fails to recognize him, that's never been much of a big deal to me, as my wallet generally fails to recognize any currency... they're so rarely acquainted: John Adams - the president - was complex, ambitious, decisive. John Adams - the book - is complex, ambitious, definitive, and a remarkably readable masterpiece.McCullough doesn't get bogged down in the tedium of mind-numbing details, and instead writes the book in more of a narrative form, starting with Adams family history, but focusing on his career in politics.Before I go on, I have to say I was apprehensive about reading this after seeing the family tree at the beginning. Six John Adams? 4 Abigail Adams? 3 Williams? 3 Thomas's? 3 Susannas? Seriously, whoever wrote The Very First Big Book of Baby Names deserves a prize. Too bad it wasn't around in 1691... (parenthetical aside: I'm a little sensitive to this right now as I recently read One Hundred Years of Solitude, and everybody had the same name in that book.)Adams' life was eventful. Oh, to be blessed and cursed to live in the times of such change.There's so much that is telling about his life - of his intelligence, integrity, his ambition and conceit. Although a steadfast patriot, he represented the Redcoats charged with murder in the Boston Massacre. (It is also telling that his friend - a Tory - was the prosecutor.) He took the case when no one else would because, "no one in a free country should be denied the right to counsel and a fair trial." (pg 66)The love and devotion he and Abigail had for each other is nothing short of amazing. Truly, they were soul mates - if ever there was such a thing. They spent roughly ten years apart, due to his devotion to the nation. Yet their love never faltered. Their correspondence is remarkable in volume and substance - to think they were writing it all in a time before the internet, when the news they'd get could be months old - if it arrived at all. The transparency seen in their letters is a beautiful (albeit slightly voyeuristic) look into who they were and how they loved.Abigail, in a letter to James Lovell (pg 262) writes of her husband, "Yet it wounds me, sir. When he is wounded, I bleed." They are a couple worth emulating. They endured. They endured.There's a lot made of Adams' time as president, and before as a politician, his hand in The Declaration, his friendship with Jefferson. I won't go into all that, because it's found elsewhere. (I will say, I loved the part where Jefferson was listening to Congress dissect The Declaration of Independence... ouch...) Yes, there was a rift between them that was bridged. Yes, they both died on the same day, July 4th - 50 years after the signing. (Note just the same date, but the same DAY.) Yes, the country took it as a sign...That is remarkable. What I find more remarkable is that Jefferson died $100,000 in debt after railing about debt. And Adams died with $100,000 to his name.Jefferson's acceptance and affection for the French Revolution is appalling, and horrific - especially given the fact that he didn't free his own slaves.Slavery, well... let's not even go there during this review...The book was great. You should read it.Before I leave this conclusionless review though, let me say one more thing that I liked - the parts at the beginning before John was in politics, while he was still a teacher. The things he said solidified my view that things were neither better, nor worse back then... people were people. Human nature does not change.Of course, I can't find it now... but John said he thought students responded better to a little praise and encouragement, rather than a "thwacking." If I find that quote, I'm going to hang it on my wall.

I read John Adams largely because my grandfather's response when I told him I was reading Alexander Hamilton last year was "I hear that John Adams biography is excellent." Additionally, I was interested because Hamilton was always at odds with him, but I like them both a great deal (and incidentally do not feel the same way about Thomas Jefferson).This book did not disappoint. McCullough masterfully selected quotations of Adams, Abigail, John Quincy, Benjamin Rush, Jefferson, and other major players in Adams's life, and incorporated them without disrupting the prose. Every thirty pages or so I found a quote so striking that I wrote it down in a little notebook, or marked the page number on the post-it I used as a bookmark. Through quotes and narrative alike, the book illustrates the remarkable, influential man John Adams was, from his years negotiating peace and loans in Europe to his one term as the nation's second President. Adams's thoughts on education, slavery, war, and the dangers of faction are compelling; his conduct in the face of constantly being misunderstood complicated and sympathetic; his ever-present integrity inspiring. In fact, at least for the moment, the admiration I've developed for Adams through McCullough's book has rendered my regard for Hamilton something closer to an infatuation. If the book has one flaw, it is in McCullough's confrontation of Adams's. Whereas the picture of Adams is for the most part brilliantly developed, the book at some point discusses his lapses in judgment, his temper, his indignation, as if it were assumed knowledge. True, these aspects of his personality were likely not as well preserved for history in letters, but I would have liked this to be fleshed out more and earlier on. This is not to say that McCullough pedestalizes Adams; I only wished to understand better these qualities of his. Also, McCullough handles some of Adams's obtrusive character traits quite well - I literally giggled imagining Adams presiding over the first Senate debates, unable to refrain from butting in in spite of his own intentions to refrain from doing so.I cannot neglect to mention Abigail in discussing her husband's biography. John and Abigail had a great romance of the kind I had sort of thought rare in general, but especially in that era. Their need for each other, the pain they express at being apart, their unyielding support for one another, and the deep deep friendship that resulted in Abigail's fond salutation to Adams as her "dearest friend," shine through in the book to demonstrate their unique bond. Intellectual, opinionated Abigail was a treat to read about. Her accounts of France in general were fabulous, and one of the highights of the entire book for me was her description of meeting and despising a preeminent French woman Benjamin Franklin had raved about (page 305-06). Less substantive matters - the book includes a family tree chart at the beginning that I constantly referred back to. The part and chapter breaks were appropriate, and the index is comprehensive and easy to navigate. Finally, a word about length: this is a book you have to be a bit patient with. It's about 700 pages long and starts off in a slow, arguably boring description of Adams's simple beginning as the son of a New England farmer, facts which of course literally define Adams. Stick with it through the first hundred pages or so, resign yourself to at least a couple of months with it, and what you never knew about Adams is sure to enrich your understanding of the fascinating times in which he lived.

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"No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it," wrote John Adams, and this superb biography by David McCullough makes it clear why Adams was undoubtedly sincere in this sentiment. Adams was a plain and honest speaking man who rose to the challenges of extraordinary times. In this biography he emerges from the shadows of the better known presidents - Washington and Jefferson - whose administrations bracketed his. McCullough did not originally intend to write a biography of Adams, it transpires, but a more general book on American history. (This eventually became his later work, 1776.) But Adams' character and life made McCullough reconsider, and soon he found himself writing a book solely on Adams. I confess to having known almost nothing about Adams, and further confess to being dismally uninformed about the revolutionary period in general, especially considering that I majored in history as an undergrad (albeit with a focus almost exclusively in European history). Some dreadful instruction during middle and high school still casts a pall over American history for me, which I realize is a poor excuse now in my fifth decade, but sadly is the only one I can offer for not having really ever undertaken a more thorough study of my own country's development. Since reading this book, however, I've vowed to read McCullough's 1776 and several other notable accounts of the period. I'm confident that I won't go wrong if I begin with more McCullough, for he is a master portraitist, using apt quotes and vivid description to make his subjects spring to life. Someone (I forget who) remarked that McCullough never wrote a bad page of prose, or something to that effect, and while that may be an exaggeration, it's no exaggeration to say that he is one of the most graceful stylists of our time. He is eloquent without seeming over-enamored of his own words. McCullough's long years as an editor no doubt paid off in honing his own style. Like John Adams, McCullough gravitates toward "classical" modes of oration and style. There's a forcefulness and directness that shines through both in Adams and in McCullough's portrayal of him.McCullough has a gift for "humanizing" his subjects. Of Adams, he wrote, "He had a brilliant mind. He was honest and everyone knew it. Emphatically independent by nature, hardworking, frugal, he could be high-spirited and affectionate, vain, cranky, impetuous, self-absorbed, and fiercely stubborn; passionate, quick to anger, and all-forgiving; generous and entertaining. He was blessed with great courage and good humor, yet subject to spells of despair." Thus Adams is shown as not a paragon but as someone who had to struggle with his shortcomings. The author's gift for fleshing out his subjects comes the fore in describing the marriage of John and Abigail. Here is a marriage shown in all its complexity; two people who were ideally suited to one another. I couldn't help but think that in their union McCullough saw something of his own -- he's often cited his own wife as being one of the reasons for his great success as a writer, especially in standing behind his decision to quit his job as an editor and research his first book. I confess to having done something I usually hate to do -- I saw the HBO special based on the book before I listened to the audio version of it. Normally that ruins a book for me, but here I found it simply reinforced it. Edward Hermann is an excellent narrator, and in fact I've ordered another audio book read by him from my library, Mornings on Horseback McCullough's biography of Teddy Roosevelt. It's easier for me to relate to history when I have a link with particular people and places. McCullough established that link for me in this period of history, and for that I'm grateful.
—Kay

Since reading John Adams I have continually been reminded of my delusion of our country's history. Today as I saw the conclusion of the John Adams' series on HBO I realized I was one of those John Adams saw as "deluded" by the artistic portrayal of our history in Trumbell's "Declaration of Independence." Adams was right. Too many of us believe Trumbell's view of the Declaration of Independence not acknowledging the many difficulties over many years before and after the signing of that great document. I'm reminded of that as we too often expect other countries to simply get their act together over a short space of time to form a more free country such as we enjoy. It was never easy. It shall never be easy. There must be always those within the country who are willing and able to do something to make a difference. It takes many making a difference and it takes respect for one another--never simple. Much happens in the process in the making of people. God raises up good and able men and women to make a difference among every people.An important book to read.
—Mary Etta

MESSAGE TO BIOGRAPHERS: Tidy up your prose, sharpen your story-telling, knowledge up on your source material and bring your entire bag of game, because the gauntlet has been chucked, the bar has been raised and David McCullough has taken off his literary glove and pasted all of you upside your second rate heads. The challenge is before you. This is, WITHOUT QUESTION, the best biography I have ever read. It is also, again WITHOUT QUESTION, the best story on the American Revolution and the creation of the United States of America that I have ever read. The breadth, depth and detail of this biography is unbelievable. Epic does not begin in describe it. It is epic epicness on an epically epic scale. This is only appropriate given the subject matter. After finishing this book, I believe the John Adams is the "founding father" I most admire. By making that statement, I do not want to downgrade the importance of the others. Jefferson was arguably more intelligent and was clearly the better writer. Washington was the most beloved and admired figure and without his leadership, the fledgling country would not have had a much needed symbol to rally around and the revolution may very well have failed. Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, James Madison, Samuel Adams, John Jay and all the rest deserve to be acknowledged for their significant contributions. So why John Adams? Two simple but very important reasons. First, John Adams, through the beautiful prose of McCullough, came across to me as the quintessential HONORABLE MAN. True, he was short tempered and intellectually vain in so far as he very much desired to be acknowledged as "great" by his countrymen. He was a man with many faults. However, he NEVER allowed any of his shortcomings or personal desires to influence any decision he made or any action he took. He was a ROCK OF INTEGRITY and every action he took and decision he made (though not always correct in hindsight) was what he genuinely BELIEVED to be in the best interest of the country. Thus, he came across in this story as the person who most aptly illustrated the qualities of INTEGRITY, VIRTUE AND MORAL FORTITUDE. In contrast, Jefferson's "behind the scenes" attacks on Adams and his inability to even acknowledge the same later on struck me as shallow and less than admirable. I point that out not to bash Jefferson (who I also admire) but to demonstrate that even the best of men had moments when they did not act in accordance with their conscience. Everyone that is, except John Adams, who never seemed to waiver from the path his conscience set before him. The second reason, and one that goes hand in hand with the first, is the absolute devotion, respect and love that he and his wife, Abigail, displayed for one another throughout their lives. Call me sappy and overly sentimental, but I was absolutely awe struck by the level of commitment and affection that they felt and showed to one another even across great distances and during long years when they hardly even saw each other. John and Abigail drew strength and comfort from one another in a way that was special and unique. This just cemented for me the truly exceptional nature of John Adams' character. He made me proud to be an American and to have such men in my country's history. Anyway, to sum up, I loved this book and give it my HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!! 6.0 Stars. One final note: for those of you that listen to audiobooks, I wanted to point out that I listened to the unabridged version (all 30+ hours of it) narrated by Nelson Runger and Mr. Runger did an amazing job that I believe added both to my enjoyment and absorption of the material.
—Stephen

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