John Quincy Adams: Library Edition

Rating:
Summary: JQA was his own worst enemy.
Review: His father was disliked, disagreeable & opinionated. According to Paul Nagel, JQA was all this & more. He was deeply neurotic. Yet he is the most eminent man of his time. He could never live up to to the expectations he had set for himself. It is doubtful he knew himself what they were. Mr. Nagel chronicles his life as a student, scholar, legislator, ambassador, Secretary of State & President. Listing President of the United States last is apt since it is by far the least of his accomplishments. Actually it was an abject failure. His youth was spent in Europe as a scholar, student & interpreter for the Russian royal court. This made him highly unsuited to do anything respectable once he returned to America. He became an attorney & hated it. He turned to politics & found he was good at it. Although it would be political suicide to admit it then or even to day, the happiest days of his life appeared to be spent in Europe, speaking French. First, as a teenager in Holland and later as Ambassador to Britain with his English wife, Louisa.
Nagle version of Abigail Adams is quite different from McCollough's version in his book. Whereas she was a loving, selfless, indespensible wife to John Adams, she appears to be a meddling, insensitive, cruel & guilt inducing mother & mother-in-law. We know so much about JQA because he kept a 50 year diary of his life, leaving more information on his life & times than the next eight presidents combined. Highly recommended reading or listening.

Rating:
Summary: JQA was his own worst enemy.
Review: His father was disliked, disagreeable & opinionated. According to Paul Nagel, JQA was all this & more. He was deeply neurotic. Yet he is the most eminent man of his time. He could never live up to to the expectations he had set for himself. It is doubtful he knew himself what they were. Mr. Nagel chronicles his life as a student, scholar, legislator, ambassador, Secretary of State & President. Listing President of the United States last is apt since it is by far the least of his accomplishments. Actually it was an abject failure. His youth was spent in Europe as a scholar, student & interpreter for the Russian royal court. This made him highly unsuited to do anything respectable once he returned to America. He became an attorney & hated it. He turned to politics & found he was good at it. Although it would be political suicide to admit it then or even to day, the happiest days of his life appeared to be spent in Europe, speaking French. First, as a teenager in Holland and later as Ambassador to Britain with his English wife, Louisa.
Nagle version of Abigail Adams is quite different from McCollough's version in his book. Whereas she was a loving, selfless, indespensible wife to John Adams, she appears to be a meddling, insensitive, cruel & guilt inducing mother & mother-in-law. We know so much about JQA because he kept a 50 year diary of his life, leaving more information on his life & times than the next eight presidents combined. Highly recommended reading or listening.

Rating:
Summary: A Sorrowful Life
Review: Paul Nagel lists as his subtitle "A Public Life, A Private Life." He has done a masterful job of giving us a picture of our sixth president of the US. So why only four stars? - it was depressing. And maybe that is not the fault of the author if John Quincy Adams' personal life was as neurotic as Nagel portrays. It is hard to believe that someone with such a poor self image could rise so high. When I finished the book I was relieved to be done with it - not because of the author's superb research and writing - but because of the portrayal of a waste of a man's life who could have done so much.

Rating:
Summary: A Sorrowful Life
Review: Paul Nagel lists as his subtitle "A Public Life, A Private Life." He has done a masterful job of giving us a picture of our sixth president of the US. So why only four stars? - it was depressing. And maybe that is not the fault of the author if John Quincy Adams' personal life was as neurotic as Nagel portrays. It is hard to believe that someone with such a poor self image could rise so high. When I finished the book I was relieved to be done with it - not because of the author's superb research and writing - but because of the portrayal of a waste of a man's life who could have done so much.