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Loading... John Adamsby David McCullough
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. 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. ( )Well worth the time. 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. 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! 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. no reviews | add a review
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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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