John Adams
by David McCullough
One of Amazon.com's Best of 2001!
In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the
adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent,
often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot -- "the colossus of
independence," as Thomas Jefferson called him -- who spared nothing in
his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President
of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary
war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of
his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is
one of the moving love stories in American history.
Like his masterly, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman, David
McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. It
is both a riveting portrait of an abundantly human man and a vivid evocation
of his time, much of it drawn from an outstanding collection of Adams family
letters and diaries. In particular, the more than one thousand surviving
letters between John and Abigail Adams, nearly half of which have never been
published, provide extraordinary access to their private lives and make it
possible to know John Adams as no other major American of his founding era.
As he has with stunning effect in his previous books, McCullough tells
the story from within -- from the point of view of the amazing eighteenth
century and of those who, caught up in events, had no sure way of knowing how
things would turn out. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, the
British spy Edward Bancroft, Madame Lafayette and Jefferson's Paris
"interest" Maria Cosway, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, the
scandalmonger James Callender, Sally Hemings, John Marshall, Talleyrand, and
Aaron Burr all figure in this panoramic chronicle, as does, importantly, John
Quincy Adams, the adored son whom Adams would live to see become President.
Crucial to the story, as it was to history, is the relationship between
Adams and Jefferson, born opposites -- one a Massachusetts farmer's son, the
other a Virginia aristocrat and slaveholder, one short and stout, the other
tall and spare. Adams embraced conflict; Jefferson avoided it. Adams had great
humor; Jefferson, very little. But they were alike in their devotion to their
country.
At first they were ardent co-revolutionaries, then fellow diplomats and
close friends. With the advent of the two political parties, they became
archrivals, even enemies, in the intense struggle for the presidency in 1800,
perhaps the most vicious election in history. Then, amazingly, they became
friends again, and ultimately, incredibly, they died on the same day -- their
day of days -- July 4, in the year 1826.
Much about John Adams's life will come as a surprise to many readers.
His courageous voyage on the frigate Boston in the winter of 1778 and
his later trek over the Pyrenees are exploits that few would have dared and
that few readers will ever forget.
It is a life encompassing a huge arc -- Adams lived longer than any
president. The story ranges from the Boston Massacre to Philadelphia in 1776
to the Versailles of Louis XVI, from Spain to Amsterdam, from the Court of St.
James's, where Adams was the first American to stand before King George III as
a representative of the new nation, to the raw, half-finished Capital by the
Potomac, where Adams was the first President to occupy the White House.
This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and
social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue,
ambition, friendship and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble
ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story
of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.
Hardcover edition: John Adams
Paperback edition: John Adams
Large Print edition: John Adams
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