Rating: 
Summary: A New Friendship
Review: Reading the first few pages of this book is like starting a new friendship. McCullough brings John and Abigail Adams to life. Closing the book for the final time felt like I had lost a dear friend. The story is gripping, entertaining, fascinating, and moving. You will come to know Mr. Adams as a person. By knowing him as a person you will realize how great his impact was.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Portrait of a Misunderstood President
Review: Adams never strove to be popular, but always stood his ground. As he "Truman", author McCullough probes behind the public personal through extensive research, especially into the wonderful correspondence Adams had between himself and the other major public figures of his time and between himself and Abigail Adams, to illustrate the roots of the man's character. Thoroughly engrossing, I give this book my highest compliment: "I didn't want it to end."
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding work
Review: David McCullough,to my way of thinking, is an outstanding historian and writer. John Adams provides careful detail into his life and that of his family. It clearly shows what a key person Adams was in our fight for independence. This is a "must read" for people from all walks of life.
Rating:
Summary: McCullough Does it Again!
Review: Well, I've just spent two weeks getting to know John Adams courtesy of David McCullough. John Adams is a wonderful biography that celebrates and savors the life of America's most under rated founder. McCullough has a clear interest in bringing the historical reputation of John Adams in line with the more glamorous founding fathers, namely George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. I don't think this gets in the way of his objectivity though. Adam's faults and mistakes are discussed, but not dwelt upon.As many reviewers have said, this book should do for Adams what McCullough did for Harry Truman several years ago. I loved this book for many reasons. The life and character of Abigail Adams was fascinating. The fragility of life in the 18th century is a common theme, as Adams experiences the death of friends, children, and grandchildren. The Adams-Jefferson relationship and all its complexity is explored thouroughly and makes for very satisfying reading. If you like biography that celebrates great American lives such as Edmund Morris on Theodore Roosevelt, or Doris Kearns Goodwin on FDR, then you will like this book. McCullough has done a great service in helping to revive the reputation of the founding father who was perhaps second only to Washington in the success of the American Revolution and in the survival of the early republic.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting tidbits, but too long
Review: This book develops the characters of the important people that founded our contry fleshing out Adams, Jefferson, Rush and others. I am not sorry I read it. I can't imagine what the book's editors were thinking. There is one point where for no obvious reason McCullough tells us that the people ice skating on the pond were doing a complex figures and then that Adams and his family climbed a bell tower and looked at the town. I had to go back an reread that part to seem if I was missing some connection to the narrative but as far as I could see there was no reason for it to be there. Throughout the book he goes into great detail about what they had for dinner and things that. That being said, I am glad that I read it. Though probably 25% of the book could have been left out with no loss, the remaining 75% is worth reading. Since reading Albion's Seed I have been comparing the people with the culture from which they came. It is ineresting to see Adams as a product of his culture and his own nature and the book enough detail to make it interesting. Be patient. The first 100 pages or so are pretty slow going with tons of irrelavant or marginally relevant characters and detail whose only purpose seems to be ambiance, but after that the revolution itself is such an exciting event that the pace picks up.
Rating:
Summary: The best history lesson I have had
Review: As usual, David McCullough brings history alive in John Adams. There are not many history books you can call a page turner. This one was. I felt as if I was living in the period of becoming an independent nation. It also helped me understand that in politics as in life, no one is perfect. Everyone makes bad decisions but John Adams never lost his honor. His worst faults were minor compared to the contribution he made to assure a free America. Thanks Mr. McCullough.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful biography, Wonderful author
Review: David McCullough is a living refutation of the idea that scholarly history must necessarily be dull and lifeless. Whatever his subject, from Harry Truman to the Johnstown Flood, McCullough makes the story come alive. Now he has added a worthy successor to his earlier works in this new biography of our second President. When most people think of John Adams (if they think of him at all) they imagine a dry, humorless fellow who was a valley of Presidential failure between two mountain peaks of Presidential success (Washington and Jefferson). Now, thanks to McCullough, we can see Adams as he really was, intelligent and scholarly, but with wit (read his reply to the French lady who asked him about the origins of sex) and verve. Furthermore, Adams was a deeply religious man whose faith in God was fundamental to his understanding of law and government. Adams was fortunate in that he had a wife whose intelligence and spirit was a match to his own. (The chapter "Abigail in Paris" is one of the most delightful sections of the book). McCullough also reassesses the Adams Administration and reveals that it was far from a failure. Adams steered a middle course between the pro-French Republicans and the pro-British High Federalists, earning himself the enmity of both and great public unpopularity, because he realized the US was in no condition to fight a war. After his defeat in the 1800 election Adams was understandably embittered with his old friend Thomas Jefferson, but in another beautiful segment McCullough describes how the friendship was rebuilt so that it endured until the day Adams and Jefferson both died, July 4, 1826. This is McCullough's masterpiece (thus far!)
Rating: 
Summary: Something lacking
Review: I don't know exactly what it is--but this bio of Adams is missing something key to his personality. For my money, the old two volume bio of Adams by Page Smith that I read last summer after visiting Adams house is the real, solid definitive bio. This is artful and clever--the Page Smith books are the real thing.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent biography, Excellent author
Review: Its a given that whenever you see David McCullough's name on a book cover that the scholarship will be awesome and the writing will be brisk and entertaining. John Adams is exceptional in that McCullough has managed to outdo even his works on Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, which takes some doing, believe me. The typical view of John Adams is that he was a dull, humorless failure of a President sandwiched between the two great success stories of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. McCullough shows us Adams the wit, Adams the innovator, and Adamsthe truly good man. Furthermore, McCullough also lets us see the entire Adams family, especially Abigail, John's soul mate in every possible way; and his son John Quincy, a worthy heir to his giant of a father. As Revolutionary leader, Adams was one of the first to be determined that the colonies should be free from Britain and one of the strongest representatives the country had in France, Holland, and England. As President, Adams had the thankless job of balancing between the pro-British High Federalists and the pro-French Republicans so as to keep the USout of a war which he knew we could not afford. Neither vain nor charismatic, Adams met the all too common fate of those who merely do a good job without hogging the limelight: he was jeered, ignored, and pushed to one side while he still had many more years he could have served. Another fascinating aspect of Adams' life which McCullough covers brilliantly is his long friendship with Thomas Jefferson. The two men were quite different in style and manner, but were close friends for many years until political differences divided them. I was very happy to read McCullough's account of how the friendship was restored after both men were in retirement, and to know that they kept in contact with each other almost up to the day they both died, July 4, 1826.
Rating:
Summary: LOVE LETTERS STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART!
Review: There's a song about love letters straight from the heart keeping us so near when apart. This book is an enthralling mesmerizing collection of the exchange of letters between Abigail and John Adams, the second President of USA. He wasn't tall or handsome; he was talkative, argumentative, and powerful. She was a shy spirited avid poetry reader, and an excellent writer, who admonished him via the letters, as he wrote the nation's new laws, to - "remember the ladies and be more favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands.... and... we have too many high-sounding words and not enough actions to correspond with them; I would not have you an idle spectator.... and.... "I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province."While John Adams served the nation, his wife, Abigail endured the loneliness and hardships of farm life, and raised their five children. The letters offer a profound look at life in that era, and are sensitive and eloquent. He was her "dearest friend"; she was his "dear soul". It is a poignant glimpse at what marriage and partnership in life can be.After reading this book, you may find Nancy Reagan's book, "I love Ronnie" enjoyable fluff.
| 
