John Adams

Made me admire Adams much more than I expected to. Expertly written biography, does a nice job identifying and weaving narrative threads of his life into a coherent tale.

I felt like I lived a lifetime while reading this (took me a month!) but it is truly a transcendent biography. I enjoyed it quite a bit more than 1776, which I also read this year. For some reason the rehash of those Revolutionary years really resonated in me through the words of John and Abigail.

If you're interested in revolutionary history, I cannot recommend this book enough. My son did a school report on John Quincy Adams last year and ever since he's been “our” president and it was fun to learn way more in depth about his upbringing as well. I am working through biographies of every US President and I can't wait to get to JQA's.

Off to watch the limited series!

I originally read this book over ten years ago. At that time, it kind of glazed over me and very little stick with me, honestly. This time, I was able to really take it in more. I also had the added benefit of trying something new: reading this concurrently with John Ferling's Adams biography. I'd read a chapter in Ferling (which, before McCullough, had been the most authoritative and popular Adams biography), and then read through the same time period in McCullough, then go back to Ferling.

It was a fascinating exercise and well worth the time if you're able to do it. It highlighted all the more both the strengths and weaknesses of both biographies.

At its core, Ferling's biography is an examination of the psychology and world of John Adams. So while you get a greater and more penetrating view of the man himself, many of the more interesting bits of his life are compressed or skimmed over if Ferling believes it didn't have all that much of a shaping effect on Adams's own self.

McCullough, on the other hand, seems to be more a biography written by a fanboy, and not in a bad way! He is still scholarly and measured, even in the face of Adams' faults, though he can romanticize and infuse some events with more drama than they deserve. This takes for riveting reading, though, and makes things more enthralling.

While Ferling does deep dives into colonial life and it's cities, as well as historical events like the Boston Tea Party, McCullough minimizes these things and sticks almost exclusively to the things John was experiencing. Whereas the former book offered a huge moment by moment recounting of the Boston Tea Party, for example, McCullough offers one sentence in reference to it–because Adams had no role in it and was not there. While Adams is overseas, McCullough spends most of his time with Adams without jumping back and lingering on life for Abigail and his kids back home.

While this leaves some holes in the story, it does allow space to zoom in and sit with some incredible moments in Adams' life, like his meeting with King George or the road trip he and Thomas Jefferson took before their relationship fell apart–both moments that occupy many pages in McCullough, but warrant single line references in Ferling.

I said this book was written by a fanboy of John Adams, and not in a bad way. It reads like a bunch of old friends of John Adams sitting around a table after he is dead and them going back and forth telling the old stories of the most interesting times of his life–moments and events that may not themselves have shaped Adams all that profoundly, but nonetheless are funny or intriguing in their own right.

I only have two big criticisms. First, because it focuses so tightly on certain events, it keeps having to backtrack in time to explore other themes or other things that were going on concurrently with the story he was just telling. This can lead to some confusion about exactly where you are in the timeline of Adams' life. McCullough has a strange writing tick where he will at times write about something and then go back in time to tell you something he did not tell you about back then that might shed light on the current event, or jump forward in time to tell you about a thing that will be coming in the future that might connect to the thing he's talking about now. Maybe it was just because I was jumping between two books, but this could make it confusing.

My second criticism is that McCullough really overly romanticizes John and Abigail's relationship. Whereas Ferling can directly say that Adams was a terrible spouse to his wife (which he was), McCullough really wants to make John and Abigail Adams into one of America's foremost romance stories in history. Generally, he does not shy away from the faults and failings of John Adams, but this is an oversight for sure.

Nevertheless, it's a fun read, comprehensive and scholarly for sure. There's a reason it is the most popular John Adams biography around. It does deserve that for its scope, clarity, and prose. Definitely worth a read.

Outstanding

An absolute must-read if you're interested in early American history and the American Revolution. The story of John Adams is completely captivating, and I enjoyed every page of this book.

Really enjoyed this book although it took me a long time to read it. I read it in three stages over 18 months. I knew nothing about John Adams before I stared and learned a lot about the man. Thomas Jefferson didn't come out of the book very well though.

David McCullough's “John Adams” is most certainly a masterpiece. My Great Books book club held a discussion on 07/28/18 and I think everyone enjoyed the novel, even those who could not finish it.

In some ways, I think John Adams was the most complex and least understood of the Founding Fathers, although all of them were interesting individuals. John Adams has not received historic accolades, perhaps because he was the first Vice President (always a rather marginal role) and followed in George Washington's large Presidential footsteps.

It is hard to say what John Adams might do if he were alive today, but he dedicated himself to public service (and taught John Quincy to do so, as well) so much so that he was gone much of the time. We forget that it took weeks or months for correspondence ot make its way to the recipient. This delay and lack of technology gives history a treasure trove of Mr. Adams' correspondence, especially that with his lovely wife, Abigail. This short, sometimes brusque man, is credited with building the US Navy and avoiding war through masterful negotiation. He also believed strongly in an educated electorate, which he worked into the Massachusetts Constitution. He felt that wealth should not be path to public service, but that anyone should be able to serve. And he was introspective and in touch with his feelings in a way that many of his contemporaries did not realize.

David McCullough takes a long life and seemingly endless primary sources to paint a never-boring portrait of our second President. Truly an excellent work.

Questions prepared by one of the book club members:

Concerning the July reading, Mc Cullough on John Adams, it has to be said that John Adams and the book both contain multitudes (as Whitman said about himself when he was accused of inconsistency).

What was the most surprising thing you learned about John Adams?
How would you describe his character? Warm and friendly or Cold and reserve? Humble and uncertain or Arrogant and self confident? Other?
How did others see him?
No one is “best” at everything they do. In what role did Adams make his most successful contribution to the American “cause” as – a) political theorist? b) an organizer of the Revolution? c) a diplomat? d) President?
Gordon Woods in The Radicalism of the American Revolution argues that government in America began as a colonial monarchy (order and hierarchy as prime values), evolved into a republic (virtue or public spiritedness and liberty as prime values) and became a democracy (self-interest and equality as prime values). How would you describe Adams' political thinking?
How would you describe his relationship with George Washington”
... With Abigail?
... With his son John Quincy?
... With Jefferson?
What were Adams' views on slavery?
..on native americans?
If you could invite Adams to dinner at your home what 3 questions would you ask him?

Fabulously interesting.