Rating: 
Summary: Interestin History of famous family.
Review: "America` First Dynasty" by Richard Brookhiser. Sub-titled: "The Adamses, 1713-1918".
Understandably, this book concentrates on the two presidents, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Their contributions as one-term presidents help to establish democracy in the nascent United States. Brookhiser notes that the two Adamses were the first presidents not from Virginia. Much of what John Adams did became precedents for later presidents. It appears to me that the author makes the tacit assumption that the reader has a fairly good knowledge of American history, so he casually introduces lesser know subjects, such as the "Know Nothing Party " (Native American Party) and the anti-Masonic efforts in upstate New York. This, of course, leads you to things that you want to examine further, but, on the other hand, inhibits the free-flow of the book. I think that the author is stretching to consider Charles Francis or even Henry Adams as "greats" who were continuing the Adams "dynasty". I did, however, enjoy Brookhiser's "book review" approach to "The Education of Henry Adams" and Henry's book on Mont St. Michel. Perhaps the next book by Brookhiser would be the comparison of the contributions of the Adamses, the Harrisons, the Roosevelts and the Bushes: all presidents who related by blood. I listened to the seven tapes as I commuted around Boston; excellent reading by Dan Cashman. It is appropriate to note the name of the town of Haverhill is pronounced as HAV AAAA rill by the natives.. The reader sounded it out and said Have Er Hill, which is logical but not the way it is said in Massachusetts. Further, the hometown of the Adamses , Quincy, is said as "QuinZZZy".
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting,but a little wordy
Review: America's First Dynasty by Richard Brookhiser is an interesting overview of the Adams family and its influence in the early history of our country. The book covers John Adams, John Quincey Adams, Charles Francis Adams, and Henry Adams. It talks about the role each of these men played in American politics. There are some parts of the book that are hard to follow, the political disputes that each man seemed to get into the thick of. But overall I will give this book a high score. Other than John Adams, I believe I liked John Quincey the best. This book would be great for any historian or American history enthusiast.
Rating:
Summary: Dynasty and Melancholy
Review: An interesting and nicely readable survey of four generations of one of America's founding families. Brookhiser's book doesn't have the detail of McCollough's recent biography on Adams (this isn't a complaint, by the way!). Instead, it traces family traits and dispositions through their historical and psychological course over a period of 150 years or so. Each one of the mini-biographies of the four Adamses Brookhiser discusses--John, John Quincy, Charles, and Henry--are fascinating in themselves. But what I think is especially valuable is the thread of melancholy that seems to run through the Adams lineage, a thread Brookhiser paints with innuendo rather than bold stroke. John's ambition and frustrated pride, John Quincy's self-punishing advocacy of unpopular causes, Charles' heart-breaking need to establish a postmortem relationship with his father by editing John Quincy's multi-volumed diary, Henry's world-weariness that expresses itself in his cleverly cynical autobiography or his romantic nostalgia for a medieval period that really never was: each of the Adamses suffers from and copes with a dark side in his own way. The darkness is what makes them all so incredibly intriguing and, combined with a New England work ethic, creates a restlessness in them that probably fuels their success. Two bonuses in the book: first, provocative insights one picks up about the Adamses (for example, Charles's aristocratic, stiff-upper-lip handling of his own increasing dotage in his last years--how Adams-like; or Henry's refusal to mourn the beloved wife who killed herself--again, only an Adams could put on such a public front); second, the book's topic invites us to ask ourselves why it is that we Americans, who supposedly deplore aristocracy out of a loyalty to our democratic traditions, so enjoy and protect our homegrown dynasties. The Adamses, the Roosevelts, the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, the Bushes--we either love 'em or love to hate 'em. A good question to ask ourselves is "why?".
Rating:
Summary: Mildly interesting but also flawed
Review: Brookhiser's book about the Adams family takes a look at four generations of the Adamses and discusses their contributions to American history. While this book does offer some minor insights, it is flawed in a number of ways. First of all, thematically, this book is weak. While John Adams and John Quincy Adams are important figures in history, Charles and Henry are really much more footnotes. Nonetheless, Brookhiser gives each figure equal weight, while it is clear that - like most dynasties - the glory rarely lasts beyond the second generation. And with all the discussion he gives to the later Adamses, he only peripherally discusses John's important cousin, Samuel Adams. Not as glaring but more problematic is Brookhiser's occasional distortion of history and his imperfect objectivity. A couple examples: he refers to James Buchanan as a definite homosexual, while the evidence is far from clear on that subject. He also incorrectly states the chronology of the 1824 election: John Quincy Adams did not offer Clay the Secretary of State position until after he was elected. At best, this book is half good, primarily as an introduction to John and John Quincy, both of whom have much better biographies available. Otherwise, this book is skippable.
Rating: 
Summary: How Generations in a Family Help Each Other
Review: Brookhiser's broad brush paints four generations of a family where some were successful and others not so successful. It is a template for others who would set out the stories of their families to follow. He also gives a good overview of American history for the period. It is also an excellent account of the female side of the family, including daughters, nieces, and friends. I recommend the book.
Rating: 
Summary: READ THE FULL BIOGRAPHIES
Review: I read this book immediately after completing David McCullough's "John Adams" (a solid 5-star book), so I flew threw the first and second sections of the book dealing with John Adams and John Quincy Adams (JQA). It's a greatly condensed version of both their lives, but since I was already well grounded in the facts, this did not trouble me. I enjoyed the way that Brookhiser's perspective contrasted with McCullough's; it's more harsh and opinionated. At that point I probably would have given this book four stars. Given my experience with the last two sections, however, I may not have thought that highly of these first two sections if I hadn't just read McCullough's book. Things started going downhill in the third section featuring JQA's youngest son Charles Francis. I began to feel like I was reading a history textbook--the type of book that soured me on history in high school and college. It covers too much ground in too little space. Significant events are listed one after another along with countless terms (e.g., Free Soil Party, Conscience Whigs, Cotton Whigs, etc). It's impossible to absorb and certainly not enjoyable to read. The fourth section features Charles Francis's son Henry Adams, the well-known writer/journalist. I was really interested in learning more about Henry and I suppose I have, but once again I found myself being annoyed with the almost non sequitur style of writing. Facts and observations follow quickly one after another. Bottom line, Richard Brookhiser has done both himself and his readers a disservice here. This book has all the appearances of haphazard work. I'm not suggesting than anything was factually wrong (how would I know, after all....), but the writing was very sloppy and could have been greatly improved with more time and effort. I have read Brookhiser's books about George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and know he is capable of producing a much better product.
Rating:
Summary: Nice Vignettes, but Pointless Talk of Dynasties
Review: I've read all of Richard Brookhiser's biographies of the Founding Fathers (Washington, Hamilton, Morris) and I've enjoyed them all, but I liked this one the least. Brookhiser writes very well and his observations on the character of his subjects are always revealing. He shows how often the best quality in a biographer is not polished prose or research skills, but judgment. In his book on the four generations of Adams, however, Brookhiser overreaches. Had he kept his focus on the men, this would have been a fine if undistinguished book. But Brookhiser appears to be trying to say something about families, American dynasties, and the difficulties of sustaining greatness. What he wanted to say, I could never quite figure out. The wonderful aphoristic quality of Brookhiser's prose -- that makes him so good when writing some sharp and brief observation -- fails him when he must sustain an argument. An example of this is when Brookhiser writes in his introduction of the contradiction of an egalitarian society having so many political family dynasties, from the Adamses to Bushes. In noting this, he writes "[An American political dynasty] is the tribute democracy pays to aristocracy." This sounds very nice, but it's meaningless. Most of Brookhiser's comments on the significance of American political dynasties and how the Adamses were able to sustain their greatness fall along this line. Thankfully, most of this book is on the Adamses, and it is when writing on them that Brookhiser shines. Still, the bad ideas -- even though they don't make up a substantial part of the book -- hang over it. Brookhiser is always interesting when writing about a person, but is not at his best when trying to come up with a conceptual framework to make sense of it all.
Rating: 
Summary: America's First Dynasty: The Adames
Review: Mr. Brookhiser dedicates this book to William F. Buckley, Jr. From that point forward, the entire book becomes his editorial on conservatism. He constantly tries to compares issues from the 18th century to today and to justify actions taken by today's conservatives as being mandated by past events. I have read hundreds of biographies, including Brookhiser's work on George Washington. This is the most one sided and least scholarly effort I have seen to date. Frankly, he should be ashamed.
Rating:
Summary: Reversion to an Old Style of Historical Biography
Review: The old style of biography was much like theatre criticism. The more cleverly you could trash the subject, the more you were -- or felt yourself to be -- a winner. When personality peculiarities made subjects as vulnerable to witticism as John Adams' was, we got decades of historical biographers trying to out-acidify the likes of Bernard Shaw. This style had faded significantly by the time David McCullough wrote a biography of John Adams that was unabashedly laudatory...an open fan letter...clear hero worship! From Brookhiser's race through four members of the Adams family I learned only two things for sure.
1. The Adams's irritate him.
2. The old adage that "the things you criticize most in others are usually your own worst fault" appears to be true. The author's rancor calls and raises the rancor he attributes to his subjects. Reading it was an unpleasant experience with little to no redeeming informational or ideational value for anyone but the author's therapist.
Rating:
Summary: American history through the eyes of one family
Review: When reading "America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918" one reads the sweep of 150 years of American history through the eyes of America's first dynastic family. The Adamses, their quarrels, their prejudices, and their crazy ideas, (John Adams thought the new nation would soon turn to a hereditary monarchy), are put into the context of the times for the modern reader to absorb. The result is a remarkably readable book sized for today's attention span. In the section on Henry Adams, the writer, historian and great grandson of John Adams, our second President, we get a glimpse of the perspective that being an heir to history can bestow on someone willing to accept it when Richard Brookhiser writes about Adams' book "History of the United States in the Administration of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison." The following excerpt includes portions of "History..." as well as Brookhiser's own synopsis of the book.
"America invited men to partake of a national wealth that was as yet mostly uncreated; the openness of the offer tapped reservoirs of energy and devotion. `The poor came, and from them were seldom heard complaints of deception or delusion. Within a moment, by the mere contact of a moral atmosphere, they saw... the summer cornfields and the glowing continent.' America's natural resources were not gold or coal, but opportunity and the people the opportunity attracted." Brookhiser has written a fine book. I am now compelled to read his other works.
| 
