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John Adams by David McCullough
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John Adams

by David McCullough

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5,15782380 (4.29)194
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Simon & Schuster (2008), Paperback, 768 pages

Member:magiscratch
Collections:Your libraryRating:****
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Recently added bymfc5, iSteeve, rebxraylp, dixont, wokaid, biobizdoc, maxinita, private library, Teri-K
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Showing 1-5 of 81 (next | show all)
A long and slow read. A thorough overview of our second president, who thus far has been severely overlooked. Readers really get to know him personally. ( )
  purkskis | Nov 28, 2009 |
Well worth the time. ( )
  corrmorr | Sep 25, 2009 |
This is a starry-eyed biography of a president who has spent too many years in obscurity. David McCullough has rightly replaced John Adams in the pantheon of American Heroes and Founders, and this book and the subsequent TV miniseries have rightly re-popularized this crotchety, no holds barred, sharp tongued, quick witted, devoted husband and public servant, also known as His Rotundity. ( )
  bfertig | Sep 24, 2009 |
I finished this book during the beginning of labor with Max--it was that good. Such a quirky man, and what a great love story with Abigail (a fantastic woman). I read that Obama's reading it on his summer vacation at Martha's Vineyard--I give it 5 stars, Mr. President! ( )
1 vote AngieN | Aug 25, 2009 |
This is the biography of John Adams, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, a diplomat who won recognition for America from European nations, was elected as Vice President and then President of the United States. Following his life chronologically, both as a diplomat and husband, this book weaves the interactions Adams had, the friends he had and lost, and, importantly, regained. His marriage to Abigail was the base foundation he used to attain the major things he did for his and our nation.

I expected a long, dull account of a man whose name I knew, but whose life I did not. I was more than surprised when I was reluctant to put the book down. Adams' struggle to be always a man of integrity but not become vain with his successes was always with him. The author clearly had researched his topic and was able to provide a picture of John Adams, the man as well as a Founding Father of our nation. Besides the facts presented the writing was clear and easy to read. This book deserved the Pulitzer.

I would give this book 4 and one-half stars. ( )
  oldman | Aug 23, 2009 |
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Epigraph
We live, my dear soul, in an age of trial. What will be the consequence I know not. - John Adams to Abigail Adams, 1774
Dedication
For our sons David, William, and Geoffrey
First words
In the cold, nearly colorless light of a New England winter, two men on horseback traveled the coast road below Boston, heading north.
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Amazon.com Amazon.com's Best of 2001 (ISBN 0743223136, Paperback)

Left to his own devices, John Adams might have lived out his days as a Massachusetts country lawyer, devoted to his family and friends. As it was, events swiftly overtook him, and Adams--who, David McCullough writes, was "not a man of the world" and not fond of politics--came to greatness as the second president of the United States, and one of the most distinguished of a generation of revolutionary leaders. He found reason to dislike sectarian wrangling even more in the aftermath of war, when Federalist and anti-Federalist factions vied bitterly for power, introducing scandal into an administration beset by other difficulties--including pirates on the high seas, conflict with France and England, and all the public controversy attendant in building a nation.

Overshadowed by the lustrous presidents Washington and Jefferson, who bracketed his tenure in office, Adams emerges from McCullough's brilliant biography as a truly heroic figure--not only for his significant role in the American Revolution but also for maintaining his personal integrity in its strife-filled aftermath. McCullough spends much of his narrative examining the troubled friendship between Adams and Jefferson, who had in common a love for books and ideas but differed on almost every other imaginable point. Reading his pages, it is easy to imagine the two as alter egos. (Strangely, both died on the same day, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.) But McCullough also considers Adams in his own light, and the portrait that emerges is altogether fascinating. --Gregory McNamee

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:56 -0400)

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