John Adams

Rating:
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.

Rating:
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.

Rating:
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.

Rating:
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.

Rating:
Summary: John Adams on Prozac
Review: This book was a disapointment for me. McCullough takes too much of the edge off John Adams, dulling him almost beyond recognition. A person can be a crank and a great man but the author has toned him down too much. Where is the ex-president cursing his enemies as he worked his farm. John Ferling and Joseph Ellis presented much more engaging and human portrayals of Adams in their biographies. I give McCullough points for capturing the feel of the 18th-19th century brilliantly, the sights, attitudes and vast distances. He does a good job on Adams' later years. But JA was a man of very strong opinions and major flaws, he was also a genius, a great patriot and a very good president (Wilson and Nixon talked about peace, JA achieved it). He is done a disservice by glossing over his very human personality.

Rating:
Summary: Good biography from the Plymouth Rock School
Review: Plus: As much about Abigail as John.

Minus: Why does Adams/good always seem to degenerate into Jefferson/bad? Can't we like them both?

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Mr. McCullough has done it again! Keeping with the tradition of Truman, this book is researched very carefully. I was able to get a copy at BEA in Chicago (signed too :). McCullough is a grateful author who truely provides historians a great tool to look at Adams life. If you are at all interested in the Revolutionary period I recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and insightful book
Review: It amazes me to think what great things we humans are capable of achieving when facing the greatest of odds against us. This intimate look at the man who was John Adams is so much more than a story of Revolution or Presidency. It is a look at life from its heartbreaks, depressions, risks and exultations. The people of the late 18th and early 19th centuries knew what all of these life issues were. They were inescapable. The Story of John Adams is how one man conquered what life dealt him through fierce dedication to his beliefs and a resolute confidence in his family, especially his wife, to sustain him through whatever trial he faced. This story of John Adams is a superbly researched text which has been liberally and accurately infused with genuine feeling which is the trademark of its author. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the time period of the piece but also wishes an insight into human nautre that few can express as Mr. Adams did and Mr. McCullogh does.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, compelling history
Review: I found John Adams by Mr. McCoullough to be on a par with another founding father biography on Ben Franklin by H.W. Brands. John Adams is a beautifully written book, lyrical in quality. Both biographies capture the human being in both. What we forget is that these men had families, needed income, and faced everyday problems such as disease and the elements. Mr. McCoullough's portrait of the everyday life of John Adams is fascinating.

I clearly gained much more respect for John Adams after reading this book than I have from other portrayals. Given the manufactured images of today's politicians we forget that true statesmen of principle once dominated politics. John Adams was a plain spoken honest patriot, as were most of our founding fathers. But we must also appreciate their personal sacrifices such as months away from family,personal risk in the war and loss of income while doing government service. They never got $100,000 a speech or commercial endorsements after their service.

I strongly urge a reading of both recent biographies of Ben Franklin and John Adams. You will have a much better appreciation of these men than the superficial treatments received in history class.

Rating:
Summary: Rapidly begins to fill the gaps
Review: Among the many prodigious gaps in my knowledge base, perhaps none stands more imposing than my relative ignorance about the Revolutionary War and the resulting growing pains and discoveries made by our nation in its infancy.

Enter David McCullough who, as he did with the excellent previous works on Truman and Roosevelt, manages to paint history as a breathing organism worthy of epic storytelling.

The John Adams as presented here is a man worthy of solid reconsideration as critical to our birth as the superstars that were Washington and Jefferson. McCullough posseses an uncanny knack at making elevated political figures human in all the right sense. John Adams comes off as being that rarest of human animals, (sadly at least in the contemporary mind) an American political figure who truly is a renaissance man. It is all too easy to forget and trivilize the extreme high stakes Adams and the other founding fathers were playing for.

In reading McCullough's latest book, I do not get the full sense of sweeping tapestry as I did with his other works. There is much in the book that appears to be missing. McCullough does however include a most helpful bibliography in his research that inspires me to search further into the era.

And perhaps that is McCullough's greatest contribution. Like the other great pop historian, Stephen Ambrose, McCullough inspires the reader to continue on beyond his immediate material and celebrate history through personal investigation. "John Adams" for the beginner (in this case me), serves as a most effective starting point for a journey into the invention of a nation. Keep up the excellent work Mr. McCullough.