John Adams

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.

Fabulously interesting.

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.

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.

The presidency of John Adams can be summed up as a man who was perhaps the most professionally prepared for the job, yet the least personally attuned for it. Adams could be stubborn, opinionated, prone to fits of anger and depression and insecure in his abilities. These are traits that one does not generally want in a president. To make matters worse, he came into the job on the heels of George Washington, the only president to date (probably ever) to be unanimously elected to the position twice. As Abigail Adams said, he was the kind of man who could have run for the rest of time and no one would have cared. So how does one manage to live up to such a legacy? Well, you can't, not that Adams did not try.

This begins with Adams and his career before the presidency. He helped to represent the men who committed the Boston Massacre. He helped to see that they were found not guilty. Then he helped to fight against the British by seeking to establish American Independence. To a layman, this may seem like a contradiction in character, but this is not the case. Adams simply felt, that, whatever the problems with Britain as a ruler, the colonists still had rights as natural born Englishman. That is, until what we would come to call the Intolerable Acts were placed on the colonies. One in particular that may have put a twist in Adams' toga was the act stating that all crimes committed by English Soldiers would be tried in England, so that they could receive a fair trial. This would be the moment when Adams would make the faithful change from loyal English subject to a revolutionary American, or treasonous person, depending on your point of view.

After this, Adams worked tirelessly to see independence for the colonies, which was no small thing, since they were sentencing themselves to death because of treasonous activities, if they lost. One fact that I find interesting is how he railed against the Olive Branch Petition, saying that it was of little use, while British Soldiers were marching in the streets and killing his close friends. As a parent, I would think that he wanted to keep his children as safe as possible, and try to avoid war for as long as possible. Instead, he wanted to teach them to stick to their values, I suppose, and decided that they should be able to live in a free country, whatever the risk.

The Declaration of Independence would mean that the new country called America would need to prove that they deserved to be free, and to do that, they needed military might. Adams himself served on an armed forces committee, meant to see that General Washington got whatever he needed. This was not to last, however, as he was soon called to assist Benjamin Franklin in asking the French for arms and men against the British. As an emissary to France, Adams could do relatively little, as Franklin held most of the sway with the people, and Adams found the culture of France very different from his own. In time, he found that he truly loved the country, as he got used to the culture.

Next, he would travel to Amsterdam, to help negotiate a loan with the Dutch. He found this to be his crowning achievement, with the loan meaning that the US would be able to get what they need. He then would spend his time in Paris, again helping Franklin with the French but this time with his wife Abigail. Together they both experienced all that France had to offer, while Congress was hammering out the elements of what would become the Articles of Confederation.
Eventually, Adams and his wife would travel to London to become the first emmasaries to England. This would be their least productive role as foreign advisors, not surprisingly. Adams was not very thick skinned, and he London press was having a field day with him, as he worked to establish a relationship with America's former mother nation. This would be considered a low point in his career, and he returned home to his farm and family. Still, he was the first independent American to look upon the face of King George III, and that is to be greatly commended.


Adams was not to remain idle while at home. He wrote responses and thoughts on the Constitution, and on how the federal government should remain stronger than the state government, as proof, looking to the failed Articles of Confederation. He then worked with others on the Constitution, working to name Washington as it's first president. He then received the nomination as its Vice President. (Back then Vice President and President were chosen separately.)


If there was a low point in his political life, it would have been as Vice President. With the exception of the Presidency, in which people may have expected too much of him, with the Vice Presidency, they expected too little. Adams was known to go on long winded speeches of principles of government. He spent days on the official title of the President, something that he was greatly ridiculed for. Adams believed that the President should have a lofty title, for someone who was a leader of the country, but many people disagreed, saying that they had just gotten independence from one king, they did not need another one. (One of his suggestions for the titles of the President was :His Mightiness, His Excellency, His High Mightiness, The President of the United States and Defender of Our Liberties.)

Regardless, Adams did not have a good time as Vice President, being asked to do little, when he wanted to do much. The only time when he had to vote on much of anything was when he agreed with Washington that they could not afford to go to war with Great Britain, and made the tie-breaking vote in favor of a peace with Great Britain to remain neutral with the Jay Treaty. This would come to define Adams just as much as Washington.

Wanting to remain neutral in war was a theme that carried over into Adams' Presidency as well. Winning by just three votes over Thomas Jefferson, Adams faced war again, but this time with France. The revolutionary fervor that had hit America like a wave, hit France like a hurricane, killing the French nobility and anyone associated with it. While people like Jefferson saw the revolution as a good thing, with will of the people being used to keep the government in check, Adams disagreed, decrying the blood spilt so violently in the name of freedom. He especially did not like how it seemed like the French citizenry descended into chaos, with people on both sides of the Atlantic, in the US and France, calling for a war against England. Adams was extremely unpopular during this time, as he tried, unsuccessfully called for peace and neutrality.

To compound Adam's foreign affairs problem, the French were being particularly rambunctious. In an effort to go to war with everybody it could reach, the French fought not only with most of Europe, but also with America, seizing American ships to stop them from trading with Britain. This angered the American public to no end, and they railed for war. Adams, in an attempt to let cooler heads prevail, sent John Marshall and three other delegates to the French foreign minister Talleyrand in 1797 to see what they could do to achieve peace. Talleyrand, however, demanded a large bribe of over $5 million dollars before he would even see them. The three delegates who came to Marshall asking for the money -secretly known as X,Y,and Z in correspondence, in case it was intercepted- stated that only them may they get a meeting with Talleyrand.

If it was possible, this enraged the American public even more. Adams, for his part, refused to meet with the French on these terms. This boosted his popularity with congress, and they passed a measure that Adams had been calling for for years- the creation of a Navy. Adams was one of the first to add a secretary to his cabinet: Secretary of the Navy, and it was his crowning achievement as president.

Sadly, this popularity was squandard as congress passed, and Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. These laws allowed anyone who decried the problems of the government as seditious and treasonous. They were liable to be thrown in prison. While we today would rightly see this as a violation of Constitutional rights, Adams saw it both then and afterward, as a reaction to the threat of war with France. I suppose this shows that during wartime, personal liberties are always put aside in favor of rooting out the enemy. Play foreboding music I wonder if this happens again in American history?

Regardless, the Anti-Federalists lead by Thomas Jefferson decried this as a violation of personal liberties, and said that the Kingly John Adams was trying to silence those who spoke out against his office. This would end up costing him he election in 1800, and he quietly slipped away into the night, after his last day in office, ready to return home for the quiet time as a farmer.

An element that has made Adams famous is his relationship with his wife Abigail and Thomas Jefferson. Abigail is one of those women who was not afraid to speak her mind to her husband, but who also helped him when he was in time of need. She and Adams comforted each other and it pained both of them when they were apart but she bore it with grace that is demanded of a wife whose husband was called upon to serve his country in such a fashion.

Adam's relationship with Jefferson is so much more complex. Both men with opposing views were friends for both of their lives. Adams was a strong Federalist, having seen what a strong government needed to do, but could not do under the Articles of Confederation. Jefferson was a man who was a staunch Anti-Federalist, and as a member of the Democratic Republicans. He wished to see the US return to an agrarian society, and away from the cities that he had seen cause so much trouble while he was a minister to France. Se two men would soon become enemies during Adams' Vice and actual Presidency. They would only return to correspondence when they were both older and in the last years of their lives. Why the change? Well, I believe that it had to do with Jefferson being the third President. For all of the slander that Jefferson threw at Adams for being a Federalist, Jefferson had probably cooled to Adams' position after Jefferson had become President. Jefferson had realized that he had only gotten done half of what he wanted because he had done a political 180, and used the power of big government. This could have allowed him to open his heart to correspondence with his old friend, and try to rekindle that friendship that they had so long ago. In any case, the friends wrote right up until their deaths on July 4th, 1826.


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This text is one of the singularly most popular biographies on Goodreads. It is either at the top, or is the top book for subjects ranging from Best Presidential Biographies to the American Revolution. This has been said to be the modern definitive account of John Adams' life. So, did this book live up to the hype? Yes, yes it did.


This is most likely because the book tends to balance so many aspects of John Adams life so well. There was the relationship with his family, his friends, his colleagues, and his enemies that the author has to present in an entertaining way. Then there is the history itself, with an account of dates, places, and background necessary as to why people did what they did, and how that affected Adams' life. This is difficult to juggle for the best of writers, but McCullough manages to do this well. It does not hurt that he has a whole breadth of information to work with, since Abigail and John Adams kept the correspondence with each other and their friends safe from harm so later generations could study it. Then there is John Adams' memoirs, which is a fascinating exploration into the man all on their own. McCullough is the kind of man who certainly had a lot of information to shift through to create his narrative of John Adams' life, and he does an excellent job of it.

If you had to twist my arm, I would say that there are a few slight issues with this book. The first being the study of other people in the novel, one of the largest being Thomas Jefferson. Whole pages are being devoted to him and his character in this book. I don't really mind, since I am going to be reading about him next in my quest for reading one book about each President, and they both had such a unique friendship that I did not really care. Many other readers, however, may wonder how this can matter overall within the big picture about John Adams.

Then there is the classic problem of McCullough writing from the standpoint of historical accuracy, whether it makes sense in his writing or not. There are times where, for example, he will be writing about a political problem Adams is facing, then he will abruptly switch to topics about one of the Adams' children because it occurred at that precise point in time. The change can be somewhat abrupt, but this is the cost of writing when it occurred in history, and not by subject.

My final complaint is one that I do not know who to levy to: Adams or McCullough. This book does have the problem of dragging around the middle of the text, when Adams is moving around Europe, from France, to Amsterdam, to England, then back to France again. This was when it got the most boring for me. The issue is, I just can't decide if it is this boring because of McCullough's writing or Adams' life in general. In any case, I'm not going to read another bio of Adams for some time to find out, just take it as a word of caution.

But these complaints are minuscule compared to the breadth of knowledge and learning I experienced when reading this book. It was simply amazing to behold. This is truly a text where I feel as if I knew the man, as much as the President himself. It gives you clues and idea as to why he did what he did, given the political ideas of the time, and the personality of the person presented, as all good biographies should. I know that if anyone were to ask what book to read about Adams, I would suggest this one without hesitation. I give it a five out of five. If you have not already, pick this up and begin reading it, it will not disappoint.

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?