Rating: 
Summary: McCullough's kindlier-gentler Adams
Review: Although it is not his best book, McCullough largely (not to say "hugely," a sloppy modifier for which he has a repetitive weakness) delivers on the high expectations for his thick biography of the Braintree Sage. His research is good and he has skillfully employed the two best aspects of John Adams' life in his account: Adams' own voluminous, revealing writings and his marriage to the irresistible Abigail. His accounts of Adams' finest hours--the creation of the Declaration of Independence and his refusal to declare war against France in 1798--are dramatically structured and emotionally moving. The only real quibble with his treatment of the long-underappreciated Adams is that, like Catherine Drinker Bowen two generations ago (check out her bodice-heaving account of John & Abby's courtship in "John Adams & the American Revolution")McCullough seems to have yielded to the impulse to soften the edges of the oft-curmudgeonly Adams. It wasn't just his principled character that left his life littered with political enemies, and McCullough downplays his hero's rough edges in his quest to make John Adams another Trumanesque Man Of The People. It's a stirring read, though, and may lead lucky readers back to Adams' own writings, most especially the Autobiography, Diary and his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson.
Rating: 
Summary: A great biography must be more than a good life's story.
Review: John Adams deserves a biography that will capture the whole of his dramatic, challenging, and adventurous life ... and oh, how I wish that David McCullough's book was it. The book has several strengths. McCullough clearly admires Adams, and he has done extensive research into the physical feel of Adams's life and times -- how it must have felt to ride horseback from Braintree, Massachusetts, to Philadelphia in January of 1776, for example. He also knows how to tell a story (though even for experts, the first chapter is so tangled in chronology that only the most attentive reader will be able to sort it out).But ... there are a couple of large "buts" about this book. The first is, in some ways, the "flip side" of the strength of this book. As with his life of Harry S Truman, McCullough is bent on giving us a sense of John Adams's life as he lived and felt it. But this emphasis on experience shortchanges the dimension of Adams that he most would have wanted posterity to know: Adams was an intellectual, often one of the most daring and profound thinkers of his time, and a key figure in what he deemed the greatest American contribution to world civilization -- the development of Americans' ideas about politics and constitutional government. Unfortunately, McCullough gives short shrift to John Adams's writings on these vital topics, writings over which Adams labored with such devotion and urgency. He does not grasp why Adams's magnificent pamphlet THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT (1776) was as important and influential as COMMON SENSE and as vital a landmark in the evolution of Americans' thinking about constitutional government, nor does he grasp the significance of Adams's other revolutionary writings. He quotes a few choice bits, retails some superficial conventional wisdom about them, and moves on. Interested readers should instead consult two books by C. Bradley Thompson -- JOHN ADAMS AND THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY [Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1998] and THE REVOLUTIONARY WRITINGS OF JOHN ADAMS [Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000.] The second problem is McCullough's use of Adams's own words. Adams scholars will be alarmed and dismayed to find familiar quotations turn up in these pages truncated, even garbled. The reason is not hard to find. Turn to the last pages, where McCullough provides his references, and you will find that he is depending on Charles Francis Adams's 19th-century edition THE WORKS OF JOHN ADAMS, published between 1850 and 1856. The younger Adams was the best historical editor of his generation, but in the process of editing his grandfather he smoothed out John Adams's syntax and left the texts he published generally unreliable. To be sure, the vast multivolume ADAMS PAPERS project has not probed far into John Adams's life. Certainly, however, for the period covered by Part I of this three-part life, the volumes are finished, and McCullough could have used them easily. So, too, McCullough fails to take account in his pages of the burgeoning scholarship on John Adams; though he lists the books in his bibliography, his account of Adams's life leaves them far astern. The challenge of writing a popular biography is considerable, but it should not be met at the expense of ignoring the intellectual dimension of one's subject or of scanting the extensive recent scholarship dealing with the person you're writing about. As with H. W. Brands's THE FIRST AMERICAN, on Benjamin Franklin, McCullough provides the joys and virtues of a good story but does almost nothing to explain why that story of a great life matters beyond its sheer entertainment value. -- R. B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School
Rating: 
Summary: Perhaps David McCullough's greatest achievement...
Review: This book is an outstanding success on so many levels. The writing is most lyrical and beautiful...there is not one wasted word in the whole book. It's a book that is difficult to put down for the night. Perhaps the greatest success of the book is the correction of many John Adams stereotypes. In this book you meet a John Adams who is a delightful wit, a man deeply in love with his nation, and more-so with his wife. Mr. McCullough also gives Abigail Adams her due as a most delightful person and one of the most important women in our history. The love the couple shared is as deep a love as humans are possible of giving and receiving, and that love is radiated to you from the pages of this book. A warrning to Jefferson fanatics...during his research, I think McCullough, perhaps more than anybody else, gained a true understanding of Thomas Jefferson and has done the nearly impossible...portraying Jefferson as a human being. As a human being, Jefferson loses some of his shine. As a human being, john Adams shines even brighter. Mr. McCullough has done with John Adams what he did with Harry Truman a few years ago...he has restored the lustre of a truly great and underrated American. I hope that preparing this book gave Mr. McCullough as much pleasure as I had reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Extraordinary and deeply moving. I can't believe no one else has read and reviewed it here yet. And at my local library, there are fewer patrons on the waiting list for it than there are copies of it on order. How sad that we find it harder and harder to be interested in any phase of our history that isn't of our own or our parents' lifetime. Americans should take a year off and travel abroad to appreciate just how "recent" the Declaration of Independence really was.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best biographies I have read...
Review: This book is a very readable book. Unlike some other history books which are dry, this one reads like a novel. I loved how they showed the personal side of a public man. His loving relationship with his wife Abigail is revealed through letters he wrote her. I also loved how the author described John Adams relationship with Thomas Jefferson, down to the little details like when they shared a room in philly one wanted the window open and the other wanted it closed. This book shows that the founding fathers did not live in a vacuum, all alone, responding to each others politics; but that they were freinds with complex relationships. I like how this book lets us see our countries greatest patriots as real people. I highly reccomend this book, there is a sage like quality to it. If this was the kind of reading offered in high school or college, I might have been more interested in history.
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Summary: The Autobiography Adams Never Wrote
Review: It is amazing to think of the process through which we might pick up a mass of paper and thumb through the life of a man who so profoundly influenced the modern world though he lived nearly two centuries ago. Needless to say, this book drew me into the depths of a mind and life that was so unfamiliar to me previously. Through Adams' correspondence to his friends, his opponents, his family, and his love, (as displayed throughout the book) we have a general sense that the voice of Adams is indeed speaking through McCullough.
It seemed as if I was reading the autobiography that John Adams never wrote.
This work travels through some of the most difficult and defining years of the United States of America and provides an insight into the contributions that John and Abigail Adams made to the prosperity of a nation. I think that the author recreates situations and circumstances wherein we are allowed to laugh, smile, become angry, and even mourn with both the Adams. If nothing else, we learn so much about the revolutionary period and the founding of our nation because John Adams lived through it all. This book may move you in a sincere way.
What bars me from giving this work a 5 star rating rather than 4 is one of the very reasons that I love this book - the apparent lack of objectivity as evidenced through the author's love and fascination for John Adams. Being the case, I would give it 4 ½ if allowed. Essentially, we are given a view of Adams' life through (more or less) the lens of Adams own eyes.
Apart from my only qualm, the book is very readable. As mentioned in a prior review, McCullough is a wonderful storyteller - he draws a picture of Adams, his times, and his experiences so well that you can see it all when you close your eyes. There are very few areas where this book becomes an arduous read. It is a wonderful portrait of a wonderful man, a historical and educational piece worth your time, and great accomplishment to which you may tell your friends, "Yes, I did read through the 656 pages of this book (the other 95 are notes, the bibliography, and the index)." McCullough leaves no question as to why he is a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Book
Review: It has been said that "ignorance is bliss", and in my case it must be true. Considering some of the critical diatribes that have preceded my review I am gratefully unenlightened as regards the fineries of writing biographical history. I love this book precisely for some of the reasons previously stated by it's critics. McCullough takes me into the "the physical feel of Adams's life and times -- how it must have felt to ride horseback from Braintree, Massachusetts, to Philadelphia in January of 1776, for example" or enduring the insufferable heat, black flies and the deaths of thousands annually from smallpox epidemics. Mr. McCullough is indeed a great story teller and the context he provides in telling Adams story was/is fascinating to me. I could say much more on a positive note about the book but I will close by simply stating that I can open this book at any time to any page and have an enjoyable reading experience. Thank you for this wonderful book Mr. McCullough.
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Summary: Beautiful introduction to American history
Review: As someone who eschewed learning and reading about American history for far too long, this book was a beautiful introduction to this significant historical period. Regardless of any publicly noted shortcomings, this book contained so many stories and references to events that I am drawn (if not compelled) to read, read, and read some more about the decades immediately preceding and following the period covered in the book. As well, reading this book and reflecting on the significant issues and events that took place during Adams' life, it was really eye-opening to think anew about recent political and world events. But above all, what I valued most about this book is that I was finally able to become completely immersed in so many aspects of an important historical figure's life, from the mundane to the profound, from the public to the private. It was a really wonderful experience!
Rating:
Summary: Typical of McCullough - Rock Solid
Review: McCullough has a gift. He has an ability to pick and interesting person and/or story and use it as the core of an engaging account of a place and time. John Adams is no different. McCullough tells the story of Adams, and in the telling captures for the reader just how fragile and uncertain a time the beginning of the United States was. What now seems a foregone conclusion was anything but at the time. The book tells a great story about a great man, but it also makes you appreciate the battle that the founding fathers fought to see our country through a veritable minefield on its way to a solid footing.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing biography
Review: John Adams is long but an absolutely beautiful biography. McCullough gives life to a man who, despite his amazing accomplishments, is often overlooked when history teaches about the American Revolution and the founding of our country. Adams, our second President, is not often given the credit he deserves as the so-called voice of the Declaration of Independence (being the loudest supporter of it in the Continental Congress), ambassador during and immediately after the Revolution, and our second President during the quasi-war with France under Napoleon.
Adams is often depicted as stubborn to the point of being obnoxious, but McCullough shows his humanity through his diary and correspondences with his wife Abigail, showing him as one our countries most thoughtful and intelligent founders who stuck with his positions and argued strongly to support them.
After reading this book, you will come away with a much better understanding of a man that history has in some ways overlooked, as well as a better understanding of the history of the time and other people involved. Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton and many more were a part of Adams' life and therefore are a part of this book. The book is very well written, rich in detail, and there is little doubt you will leave this book with a great amount of respect for our second President. It is a long read, but without a doubt well worth it. This is one of my favorite books, and definitely my favorite non-fiction book.
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