John Adams

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Summary: Resurects and almost forgotten Founding Father
Review: Well, that is a bit of an exageration, but I don't think that that John Adams is very well known to even that part of the public that reads history for pleasure. This book will certainly change that, and hopefully we will learn to say his name in the same breath as Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington. He was no less important and deserves no less fame. An he certainly is more lovable as a man than I had ever thought. Next to Franklin, there is no founding father I more regret never having been able to meet.

The book is short on his political thought and writings, which are an extremely important contribution to American political theory, but the book gives the general idea. It leaves one thirsting to know more.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I agree with several of the previous reviewers that this book was disappointing. After reading Truman and enjoying it tremendously, I was disappointed that this book does not live up to its predecessor. After finishing this book, I felt I had a thorough knowledge of what John Adams did and said, but this book left me with a very incomplete picture of the John Adams behind those words and actions. This is particularly evident in the motivations behind Adams' embracing the patriot cause as one reviewer previously pointed out. I also felt that this book could have been edited down a bit, that parts of it lagged. It is not a bad book and is probably worth reading. However, I had hoped for much more based on the author's previous works.

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Summary: Our 2nd President . . . Without the Singing and Dancing
Review: My curiousity in John Adams first piqued by repeatedly in my youth watching the musical "1776" (of which Adams is the main character), I looked forward anxiously to McCullough's latest take on America's 2nd President. It didn't hurt that McCullough's bio "Truman" is still perhaps my favorite political biography of them all. With all these high expectations, I was waiting for my hopes to be dashed. But, nothing could be further from the truth.

"Adams" is a terrific piece of work. Relying on a treasure trove of letters and correspondence written by Adams and his tremendous wife Abigail (both of whom were compulsive/obsessive writers), McCullough replays the history of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Washington Presidency and Adams's tumultuous four years as President with vibrant storytelling and just the right amount of detail without getting weighed down.

In MuCullough's view, Adams was a brilliant, determined, forthright, nonpartisan, stubborn politician who was unabashedly American and ambitious for higher office only to the point that public service (according to Adams) was the greatest calling of all.

Anybody looking for a line by line history of America's birth, from 1776 to 1800, will probably be disappointed. McCullough skips over the details of the American Revolution and the drafting of the Constitution. He instead tracks the diplomatic journeys of Adams, who travels to England, France and Holland with Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (both occasionally) as they try to negotiate various peace and commercial treaties.

The best surprise of the book? Abigail Adams, an amazing woman living entirely ahead of her time. Without her, McCullough obviously believes, John Adams would never have achieved his status in American history.

The only disappointments in the book? A skewed and very negative portrayal of Alexander Hamilton, and a less-than-complete discussion of why two of Adams's sons, Thomas and Charles, came to financial and physical ruin, while another, John Quincy, became our 6th President.

Though not quite as entrancing and new as "Truman," "John Adams" has its own charm. It's an amazing journey with America's inception, and a reminder of the greatness of all of our Founding Fathers, perhaps the most misunderstood of all being the delightfully stubborn and pigheaded Mr. Adams.

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Summary: Fascinating History of A Great American
Review: Like most of us, I remember John Adams from the famous story about the pickle factory: a young man walks into the Adams Family Pickle Works in Greater Roxbury and falls into the biggest barrel of brine. His body goes undetected for several days, and then is processed with the rest of the pickles for sale. "And how did you find the pickles, young man?" Adams is reputed to have asked a visitor. "I loved them," said the man. "Especially the white one." McCullough clears this up right away: it never happened. But, apocryphal or not, this story has informed the opinions of millions as to this, one of our most underrated presidents, the man who forcibly took America and dragged her, kicking and screaming, into modernity. I was especially grateful for the full and complete story of the way in which Abigail brought her considerable influence to bear on foreign policy, charmingly baking "54-40 or Fight" cookies and passing them out to doubtful constituents. There is also the famous matter of Adams' final conversation with his old friend and rival, Thomas Jefferson. McCullough sheds fascinating light on this most complex of political and personal relationships: apparently, Jefferson phoned the aging Adams at home one evening to discuss some vital issues concerning the still-young republic. Something Adams said angered Jefferson, and the fiery Virginian slammed the phone down in the Bostonian's ear, which had never recovered from the cold to which it had been exposed at Mount Vernon during the Revolution. Adams took it upon himself to climb into the family surrey and travel hundreds of miles to Monticello to present Jefferson with a pan of Abigail's home baked Madeleines! True friends, despite all! Read this book and you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. It lives, breathes, and invokes American history.

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Summary: This book is AWESOME!
Review: This is a sanfrantastic book! Anyone who thinks otherwise is a chump.

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Summary: Readable but not always precise
Review: This is in many ways an excellent book. John Adams emerges from these pages as a man, often in his own inimitable words. The descriptions of places and people are wonderful. The illustrations include beautiful color portraits of Adams.

In at least one case, however, there is a clear error of fact. On pages 229-31, McCullough describes how John Adams landed in Spain in December 1779 and made his way to Paris in February 1780. He states: "John Jay of New York, the American minister to Spain, had been in Madrid for a year, and his mission had proven hopeless, as the Spanish Court had no interest in recognizing the independence of the United States." John Jay had not been in Madrid for a year. He had not even arrived in Spain. He arrived at Cadiz on January 22, 1780, and arrived in Madrid on April 4, 1780.

I located this because I am working on a biography of Jay. One minor error does not ruin a book. But it does lead one to wonder whether there are other minor errors of fact. McCullough footnotes all his direct quotes, but he generally does not footnote other facts.

This is a book well worth owning and reading. But if one took the names off the dust jackets, and did a "blind reading," I am not sure that it betters in any way John Ferling's John Adams. And that book does footnote its facts.

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Summary: Great Intro to Adams
Review: There is the Washington legend of the cherry tree with which we're all familiar. Most third graders know that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. But how many stories are there about Adams that are common knowledge to anyone? Zilch. Although there has been a revival in recent years of interest in Adams, he still remains in the shadow of Jefferson, Washington, and other, perhaps more 'photogenic' Revolutionary figures. But finally, a biography that puts Adams in the spotlight!

McCullough succeeds in several ways. He manages to use Adams' own words almost seamlessly with his own text. He also manages to give a detailed portrayal of Adams' contemporaries: Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, as well as his own illustrious family of son John Quincy and wife Abigail. However, it takes a while for him to get started with the story as he backtracks from 1776 to 1774 and then finally to the beginning of Adams' life. But from there the story is much easier to follow.

All in all, I enjoyed McCullough's biography of John Adams. Finally the public is able to enjoy a readable and well-researched biography. While the length might be daunting, it is well worth it to emerge from the 'tome' of the book with a fresh view of the Founding Fathers and of one of the most important of them, John Adams.

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Summary: Popcorn of History: Enjoyable, but unsatifying
Review: Much of this book is extremely enjoyable - human details come on every page, allowing the reader to enter the scene.

But I was left with several questions, largely because parts of Adams' life seem oddly left out. We follow Adams from boyhood to Harvard, to Worcester schoolteacher, to the legal profession. We suddenly find him one of the adamant supporters of independence, even when many people looked for compromise with London. Why was this? Why did Adams become so committed to the independence and republican government? We never know, which is odd considering the book focuses on Adams as a person.

In fact, Adams seems a little too perfect to be wholly human. No one is perfect, and a book that claims to show you Adams as a person ought to show you warts and all. Adams described himself as vain and cantankerous, but McCullough assures us that he was just being self-deprecating. Adams is a model of virtue here, devoted to his family, while saving the Revolution from the British, Ben Franklin's incompetence, French manipulation and the spirit of compromise.

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Summary: DO WE REALLY NEED THIS BOOK
Review: The first 50 or so pages made me think that this had all be said before. Countless books have been written about Adams, now this one adds nothing new to the collection. Truman was a great book by McCullough with lots of new and interesting info, but this one is a dud, not worth the money and a absolute bore. Best used as a paperweight.

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Summary: Excellent biography!
Review: David McCullough is one of my favorite writers of history, along with Stephen Ambrose, W. Bruce Lincoln and a few others. It's no shock, then, that I thoroughly enjoyed this biography of our little-understood and generally maligned second president. His rehabilitation has long been overdue, and Mr. McCullough accomplishes that without diminishing the reputation of Thomas Jefferson. There is a lot in this book that I found new and fascinating, and the author's style made the reading quite easy. I strongly recommend this work to anyone interested in the founding, and the early government, of our country.