Rating: 
Summary: Bringing History to Life
Review: The greatest achievement of this book is that it brings to life a man and a time that are very remote from our own. I have read many books on the Revolutionary Era that are the products of excellent research and present important facts to the reader. Most of them, however, are painfully difficult to plow through. This book is a delight to read from the very first page. It sweeps you immediately into an 18th century New England winter and makes you feel as though you were there. McCullough could have written a shorter book, but doing so would have left out many of the little details that bring history to life.This book is intended for the general public, not the halls of academe. That is another sure sign that "John Adams" is a good read and is good history.
Rating: 
Summary: Is one form of hero-worship better than another?
Review: As a non-historian, I feel ill at ease judging history books. (The same goes for books on mathematics and probably would go for zoology books, but we stick to the trouble with history books here.) On the one hand, they're very much like novels, telling a story that will hopefully keep the reader intrigued for a few hundred pages. As a novel, _John Adams_ is very, very good. But in the case of a book like _John Adams_, history books are also telling what was, in all likelihood, a very boring story most of the time. It seems that the historian's challenge is to distill 80 or 90 years of typically boring life into 600 pages of riveting prose. It's a fine line to walk. Throughout _John Adams_, I feared that I wasn't reading the life of a person, but rather that of an icon; this was a man whose every breath, in McCullough's eyes, was principled, honest, and lacking most of the deficits that we humans experience. Or so it seemed to me. Despite the jacket's claim that it's trying to overcome the view of the Founding Fathers as ``figures in a costume pageant", I couldn't help feeling that McCullough had just entered them in a new pageant. Instead of the pageant in which our forefathers were dolled up in powdered wigs and stuck inside of a glass case to ogle, McCullough cast them as actors in a remake of _Braveheart_. They seem more real under McCullough's eyes, and I have a better sense of why to admire them, but I'm still not sure if I'll ever meet the real John Adams. I'm not sure I ever could meet the real man, certainly not from a book that would hold my interest. I may have been hoping for a book in which McCullough refused to make any assertions beyond the bare facts revealed in primary source materials from throughout Adams's life. But such a book would be hardly readable, and would be bear little trace of McCullough: it would be hardly more than collated diary entries and letters. Given that McCullough was writing much more than just a collection of primary sources, I have to say that he succeeded. He seems to have a secondary motive, which is to take Thomas Jefferson off the pedestal on which he has been placed for so many years (e.g., John F. Kennedy's famous quote when speaking to a roomful of Nobel laureates that ``"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone"). I'm not sure if Jefferson deserves to be removed, or if - as McCullough seems to wish - Adams should be elevated to the same plateau. In any case, I'm not sure whether I want to see one form of hero worship replaced with another. I guess that's my biggest concern: John Adams was a human, not a hero. I don't believe that heroes exist. People do certain things, and those things may be praiseworthy, but it is the adulation of others that makes those people into heroes; the people themselves are ordinary humans. But a biography of an ordinary human wouldn't sell books, so perhaps it's unavoidable that McCullough would engage in hero-worship. In the end, I don't know what to conclude about _John Adams_. It's a very well-written book, bringing historical sources together into a coherent narrative. It is enjoyable to read and puts the cast of characters from the Revolution in greater perspective than I learned in high school. Yet I worry that it is just another variant of the same unreality in which much of American history is masked.
Rating:
Summary: Every American Citizen Should Read This Book!
Review: If George Washington is the father of our country, you will find in this book that John Adams was the midwife. He saw to the proper delivery of the bouncing toddler that was The United States of America. Our second President was everything that other founding fathers presented themselves to be. You will find he was a man with an incredible fortitude, ego, loyalty, sense of duty and moral compass. John Adams was a man of shortcomings as well haunted byt vanity and anger. He was also very human, a lover, a father and grandfather. David McCullough has written a beautiful book. One of the amazing things you will find in this tome is a mastery of the English language like we do not see today. The elloquence of the letters from which Mr McCullough uses exerpts, and his ability to marry it to his own narrative is nothing short a wordsmith's fantasy. As in all well written records of history nyths and legends will be disspelled. You will in awe of how John Adams personal sense of who he was guided him in Europe when direction was six months away across The Atalntic Ocean. Most amazingly is what you will learn as John Adams became our first diplomat. His ability to say yes to when ever his country called, even when it meant a 12 year absence from the land he loved and was working to build. A man who was a revolutionary and then finds himself in The Court of St. James presented to the very King he rebelled against! You will find one of the most passionate men of his times in the 18th century's best love story. You will discover a woman who by all standards was quite a woman. Abigail Adams was in her time probably more respected by J Adam's friends and enemies alike! I can't say enough. Open this book, read and learn. Learn the truth, learn about self discipline, service, love and patriotism. Underestimated, and unappreciated at times John Adams held to his course which allows us to be who we are today. I think it is obvious, that without John Adams, our country today would be a very different place.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Terrific
Review: My first of McCullough's written works--what an exceptional writer, to say nothing of his skill as an historian and his grasp of the humanity of the personalities in focus. A masterful project which deserves recognition as the definitive work on Adams. I was left with a new appreciation for the contributions of this shaper of American history who is so often overlooked in the shadows of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. McCullough's work places Adams in his rightful place as one of the greatest influencers among the American Founding Fathers. A delight to read.
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Summary: Help for Post 9/11 America
Review: I want to thank David McCullough for writing a book that helped me--and I believe can help others--get through a trying time in our history. The John Adams illuminated here was certainly not a flawless man, but one who rose to greatness when it was required through sacrifice, devotion to country, and devotion to the ideal of liberty. Although ordinarily I am not a biography reader, in searching for something that would hold my interest after September 11 and yet not seem frivolous, I found this book to be the perfect read--in fact, I could not put it down and read it for hours at a time. Dry and dull, it is not. On the contrary, it is absorbing account of the lives of our American heroes (and heroines, since I would certainly include Abigail in any such list) which reminds us of the truly inspiring people who form the American "stock." That is not to say they were great solely because of the European tradition they came from, but because they embodied the American ideals that attract all of us, no matter when we immigrated or from where. Adams was visionary in his sense of how this country could be different from anything that had come before, and as McCullough tells it--with ample use of Adams' own words--his own eloquence and passion were at several points crucial in setting the young republic on its historic course.
The best part of the book, I felt, was McCullough's frequent and well-placed use of the words of those who were living at the time, as well as his development of the broader historical context in which Adams lived and wrote. I am surely not the only reader who will marvel at the copious writings of both Adamses and their many correspondents, and wonder how our own generations to come will find out so much about us.
Less successful, in my opinion, was the way in which McCullough introduced an event and then switched back to the times leading up to the event (perhaps this was just me, but I found myself disoriented a bit by this device and not sure exactly when things happened). All in all, however, an absorbing and inspiring book that I can heartily recommend to readers of both fiction and non-fiction who would appreciate a dose of post 9/11 comfort and joy.
Rating:
Summary: My Most Memorable Read in Several Years
Review: A wonderful history, despite McCullough's love affair with his subject. But I forgive him for being too rah-rah with Adams and entirely too harsh on Jefferson...for this book makes a strong statement for the man from Quincy, and boosts him at least to a new height (if not to the immortal stature of the Virginians.) The cross Atlantic adventures, the mid-winter rides to Philadelphia and the brilliance of young John Quincy Adams are fascinating. If you read one book this year, choose this.
Rating:
Summary: One Great Book
Review: Would you believe I read this one in two days? I did. John Adams doesn't get as much play as Thomas Jefferson among the so called "founding fathers" but David McCullough makes a good case that he was the greater of the two men. He was a key player--and maybe THE key player in the writing of the Consitution. I especially enjoyed the discussion of his "soul mate" relationship with Abigail. She was an amazing woman but, at the time she lived, women stayed home and raised children--and that is what she did (even when John Adams was sent to Europe as an ambassador)--but she was definitely a mover and shaker behind the scenes. After reading this book, I purchased "Dearest Friend", which is a biography of Abigail. David McCullough is probably the best writer of American history for the masses (as opposed to the scholars) around. Come to think about it, this would stand up to most scholarly works.
Rating:
Summary: An Extraordinary Book About an Extraordinary Man.
Review: David Mccullough has written an illuminating, intriguing, often very moving account of the life and times of one of our most important American Patriots, our first Vice President/Second President. Fascinating insight into John Adams personal life, especially his amazing wife and the vital support role she played, in the birth of our Nation. Fascinating insight about the major players of the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution and what it required to bring a new nation into being. I highly recommend this exceptional biography of a very human, special, gifted man who seems to have been Providentially placed in the right time and place.
Rating:
Summary: Primus Inter Pares
Review: The only flaw surrounding this work has been its marketing: McCullough's book has been hailed as a kind of "rediscovery" of the second president of the United States, or as the revelation of a kinder, gentler Adams. It is true that McCullough is probably the best-known storyteller to take up the tale of John Adams, and this work meets the author's usual standards of excellence. For the reader who plans to tackle one biography of Adams in his lifetime, this work will certainly fit the bill. But in fairness it must be noted that Adams has not suffered from literary neglect prior to McCullough. In fact, Page Smith's two-volume 1962 biography is a classic, and John Ferling's 1992 offering is crisp and informative. Adams is also a central character in Richard Morris's "The Peacemakers" [1965] and Elkins and McKitrick's "The Age of Federalism" [1993]. McCullough's work is as good as any of those mentioned, but it is not a quantum leap forward, either. Abigail Adams, one of colonial America's truly remarkable women, enjoys a well-deserved preeminence in this version of Adam's life. But on the whole it is safe to say that Adams, much like Washington and Jefferson, defies the attempts of even the best historians to restrain him within the covers of a single opus.
Rating:
Summary: Highly readable. John Adams will rise again!
Review: An enigma to his comtemporaries for sure, but no longer to history. Mr. Adams clearly gets his due, and rightly claims a seat beside Washington and Jefferson as one of our greatest founding fathers.
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