John Adams by David McCullough won the Pulitzer Prize among other awards and receives rave reviews. This is the audio version which I got for the commute.
Started: 8/28/2016
Completed: 9/9/2016
Recommendation: Slow Read, but good history
Recommended By: Everyone
Review:
Our first vice-president and second president manages to fall under the radar of most. I was unaware of his role in the Declaration of Independence, though I was aware that he and Jefferson had an on-again off-again relationship most of their lives and that both died on July 4th in the same year. I new that Adams was a plain man who viewed the role of the Founding Fathers within a proper historical context even if he was unsure whether it would be fame or infamy.
I learned a lot about his role in relationships with foreign countries and though I had a passing knowledge that he was involved at one point as a French ambassador (I read about this in the book 46 pages) but I did not realize the scope and length of his foreign travels. On some level I thought that he had been more active in the Revolutionary War than he actually was and I was unaware that he was the lawyer who defended the British troops after the Boston Massacre.
Adams was truly an interesting man who lived his convictions. I admire him in this way and also share his love of books. I have several more books about Adams and about the difficulties between Adams and Jefferson so I am inclined to reserve judgement on this book without having learned more about him.
It would seem that Adams and Aaron Burr had little or no relationship given what I have read here and in Gore Vidal's Burr but it seems odd to me that the two would not have interacted. It also seems odd to me that Adams and Hamilton did not interact much more than the book describes. Perhaps this is a want of space or perhaps it is because the book clearly uses the letters between Adams and his wife Abigail as a primary source of information. It could also be that both Burr and Hamilton were young, ambitious, and rude--the latter two characters would certainly have rubbed Adams the wrong way.
I was inspired by Adams' position on slavery and found his attempts to address this with Jefferson (who seemed conflicted at best) interesting and insightful. I also was not surprised to find that a large part of Adams' success as a man of the world could be attributed to Abigail who supported him unquestioningly.
Our first vice-president and second president manages to fall under the radar of most. I was unaware of his role in the Declaration of Independence, though I was aware that he and Jefferson had an on-again off-again relationship most of their lives and that both died on July 4th in the same year. I new that Adams was a plain man who viewed the role of the Founding Fathers within a proper historical context even if he was unsure whether it would be fame or infamy.
I learned a lot about his role in relationships with foreign countries and though I had a passing knowledge that he was involved at one point as a French ambassador (I read about this in the book 46 pages) but I did not realize the scope and length of his foreign travels. On some level I thought that he had been more active in the Revolutionary War than he actually was and I was unaware that he was the lawyer who defended the British troops after the Boston Massacre.
Adams was truly an interesting man who lived his convictions. I admire him in this way and also share his love of books. I have several more books about Adams and about the difficulties between Adams and Jefferson so I am inclined to reserve judgement on this book without having learned more about him.
It would seem that Adams and Aaron Burr had little or no relationship given what I have read here and in Gore Vidal's Burr but it seems odd to me that the two would not have interacted. It also seems odd to me that Adams and Hamilton did not interact much more than the book describes. Perhaps this is a want of space or perhaps it is because the book clearly uses the letters between Adams and his wife Abigail as a primary source of information. It could also be that both Burr and Hamilton were young, ambitious, and rude--the latter two characters would certainly have rubbed Adams the wrong way.
I was inspired by Adams' position on slavery and found his attempts to address this with Jefferson (who seemed conflicted at best) interesting and insightful. I also was not surprised to find that a large part of Adams' success as a man of the world could be attributed to Abigail who supported him unquestioningly.
