Total Page : 768
Publisher : Simon Schuster
Publication Date : 2008 01 29
>> John Adams
Haven t read this book yet but it was delivered fast and in excellent condition
>> John and Abigail Adams
Last year on my summer vacation I read American Sphinx The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph Ellis It was a biography of the Sage of Monticello that dissected not so much the politics or history of the man but his seemingly bipolar personality It discussed at length how often he would say one thing and then do another as it suited his purposes And while the book went forward at a good clip and was insightful and entertaining the more I read the less I cared for Jefferson and the more I came to like his friend and sometimes political rival John Adams
That s why a month ago I picked up a copy of John Adams by David McCullough It is a monster biography Over 600 pages that covers Adams life from cradle to grave by using personal papers and letters written by Adams his wife Abigail their children friends and relatives Through McCullough s work I found that John Adams was a giant of the revolutionary age who did so much in service of his country and was so prolific in his writings both personal and public that a couple of hundred pages could NEVER contain him
Yet despite the prolific nature of the man and his family Adams is one of those figures who get glossed over in history class Very little attention is paid to him in textbooks They might say he was a signer of the declaration They might say he was President for a while But other than that Adams is a largely forgotten figure of history for the average student In fact even after having grown up in his home state of Massachusetts I knew very little about him I am ashamed to admit that a lot of what I knew was gained in a classroom viewing of 1776 The Musical in Miss Olsen s 8th Grade History class in Billerica MA I m not kidding
This book gave me an acute lesson in Adams that was fascinating There are so many things I didn t know about the man as to be laughable I didn t know he was the lawyer who defended the British Soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre I didn t know it was Adams who got the funding and oversaw the building of our first Navy I didn t know that after being an ambassador to France he left on his own that is without approval of congress and went to Holland to secure much needed loans from the Dutch I didn t know that after the war he had been minister to the court of St James England even after having been marked for hanging during the revolution There were many surprising turns of events in Adams life that while wholly remarkable and noteworthy are nonetheless seldom studied by the average survey of American History classes
But the real surprise in the book was his wife Abigail Adams
I had never thought or heard much about Abigail Adams In a sense I knew they were a power couple I got that much from the musical What I did not know was in how many ways and on how many topics Abigail was the perfect complement to John himself In a time when women were largely overlooked by society she carried on the business of the household while John spent his time away on the nation s business She ran the farm traded shrewdly and increased the Adams holdings in Braintree/Quincy kept up with the comings and goings of the Massachusetts legislature and the continental congress received and relayed news of the war to John and raised 3 children with John in France When she finally went to Europe during John s ambassadorships her keen insights on people and steadying influence on his humor helped John accomplish great things for the fledgling United States In fact all through their life together she was an island of tranquility in the chaotic seas of life during the early stages of American independence
Abigail was no less prolific a writer than John and in some ways more valuable Throughout McCullough s book in quotations pulled from the myriad letters used for research it was the writings of Abigail which offered the most insight into John and the American people s states of mind She was able to see things and express them in ways that her husband could not An astute observer opinionated pioneering well read well mannered steadfast and hearty Abigail maintained relationships with her husband siblings parents and children for many years with a prolific outpouring of letters to all of them And as if that weren t enough she corresponded with several of the prominent names of history including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Rush In short Abigail Adams was a remarkable woman who deserves much more acknowledgement than she has received over the years
I won t bore you further with my version of the details of the Adams life McCullough does a much better job than I ever could of revealing who they were And that s part of the reason this book won the Pulitzer Prize McCullough has an easy way with words while being thorough in detail a combination of traits that historical writers seldom seem to have His writing is easy going almost to the point of being conversational in tone and conveys the mood of the situation about which he is writing better than any current writer non fiction or fiction that I can name
I very much liked this book and recommend it to anyone looking to gain insight into this country s founding one of our greatest founding fathers or just daily life in that period of history
>> Great
A new found respect is gained for John Adams in the pages of this book He was a bigger and more important figure in American history than people realize and greater than many of his more famous contemporaries
