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John Adams (平装)
by David McCullough
| Category:
American history, Founding history of America |
| Market price: ¥ 238.00
MSL price:
¥ 208.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A standard McCullough work - part scholarship, part entertainment, and part American boosterism, John Adams is another fine addition to McCullough's line of Great Man biographies. |
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AllReviews |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 15 items |
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Bill (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-22 00:00>
I agree with many reviewers that John Adams is an excellent companion to McCullough's recent 1776. In fact, for those relatively unfamiliar with the era (such as me), I recommend that 1776, along with Ellis' His Excellency: George Washington be read first. Several years ago I tried John Adams and did not get very far before setting it aside. I suppose the reason was that too much of seeming triviality was thrown at me and I could not see the forest for the trees. 1776 and His Excellency gave me a more solid grounding and perspective of the era and its personalities and I tried again with John Adams better able to appreciate and savor the details.
Much of the book is comprised of Adam's public writing and correspondence. Adam's writing shows a curious, articulate, perceptive, and well-read man of the Enlightenment striving to live a virtuous and productive life both in family and public service. Many quotes on varying subjects such as education, political theory, and musings of the future have left lasting memories in my mind. Included is the extensive correspondence with his wife, Abigail, who has a very strong supporting role far beyond the passive, uneducated stereotypes of a woman of the time. Adams was fortunate to have a loving, brilliant spouse who filled the role of a politician's wife, but at the same time provided intellectual stimulation and challenge that assisted Adams in formulating and refining his views.
In recalling my own school days, Adams tended to be portrayed as an unfortunate and unpleasant interlude between Washington and Jefferson with Alien and Sedition Acts as the main example of his presidency. In fact, I recall a picture of him in a book of the Presidents from my childhood that showed an angry looking, red-faced man pointing his finger in a debate. His earlier role as key initiator of the movement for independence and important roles in Europe during and shortly after the Revolutionary War were overlooked along with the positive accomplishments during his presidency.
Besides a fresh look at John Adams, McCullough gives us a new, sometimes unflattering look (although one through Adam's eyes) at the character of figures such as Franklin and Jefferson that reduces their respective glows on the historical pedestal. Of course the reader should be cautioned that this book is one writer's interpretation and true understanding does not stop here. However, John Adams" is more than a biography. It is also a Life and Times survey and also a study of the people around him as much as a study of Adams himself. From events such as the Boston Massacre, the Continental Congress in 1776 and the Declaration of Independence, the efforts to gain the aid of France, the Constitutional Convention, the Presidencies of both George Washington and John Adams, and portraits of society and life in both North America and Europe, John Adams gives the reader an excellent understanding of the period and brings its personalities alive.
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McLearn Russell (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-22 00:00>
I'll admit I gave the book a try. In fact, when it won the Pulitzer Prize, I even bought a nice paper back edition. Unfortunately, somewhere in Adams' various trips to France, my interest lost its way. The narrative was just too long-winded and dry for my tastes.
The book on CD provided me an opportunity to listen to the book in a seriously condensed version. I have to say, it wasn't half bad.
Positives:
1. The abridged edition. It's just a lot shorter, which is really nice for those who want an interesting tale of John Adam's life without a lot of the fluff. Several parts of the book are shortly summarized by a different reader, and the CD's really focus on the great highlights of Adams' storied life and career.
2. The story. The experiences of Adams were truly incomparable. He was a central figure of his time. In fact, I finished the book with a greater respect for his part in the goings on of the Revolution and beginnings of the American nation than I had ever had.
3. The philosophical ramblings. The CD's leave in just enough of McCullough's trademark prose to give the story a distinct flavor from a sterile, run-of-the-mill biographical sketch. In fact, I believe the parts left in the Audio version are actual excerpts from the book.
4. Did I mention how it's a lot shorter?
Negatives:
1. The abridgment. I know, I know, I listed this under the positives. Unfortunately, the abridgment leaves you wondering at times if you're missing out on something. The quick summaries keep the story intact, but lack any character. They are only there to move things along, and so you practically feel like you need to go back and read the missing pieces. This feature just fit in both categories.
2. Favorable bias. I felt like Adams could do no wrong. Even when McCullough attempts to establish Adams as a man with faults and foibles just like any other man, he presents Adams in a silly, almost cheeky light. This treatment leaves you with the impression that his virtues were Olympian, while his faults were hardly worth mentioning except for a quick chuckle.
3. Dry at times. If you're a history buff, this doesn't even apply to you. For the laymen who would like an interesting, somewhat intellectual read, but don't have unlimited patience, the book will drag at times, even abridged on CD. There were times when ample description and historical facts and quotes were helpful and interesting in fleshing out the story, and there were other times. You know what I mean.
Overall, I enjoyed this book on CD. I gave it four stars after all. I certainly felt like I learned something about a man that played an essential role in the founding of the United States and it was pretty fun to listen to the story unfold. If you want to know everything, the book is the way to go. If you want a relatively quick, but very interesting insight into Adams' life, the CD's won't steer you wrong.
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Karen Potts (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-22 00:00>
Fortunately for modern readers, John Adams was one of the most prolific writers of his times. His letters to his family, particularly his wife Abigail, as well as letters to other public figures form a basis for the writing of this book. It is fascinating to read his public writings in light of the happenings of his time, and then read his private letters which reveal candidly his true thoughts.
Adams was a consummate New Englander - thrifty, hard-working, and very much involved in life around him. He would have happily remained a farmer, but for the events which swirled around him. He could not stand by and watch the British bully America, and he was one of the earliest and strongest proponents of independence. When the war was won, Adams continued his public life as a diplomat in France, the Netherlands, and England. His dogged determination and a refusal to compromise his integrity sometimes got him into trouble with foreign governments, but his judgment was usually proven to be correct. His relationships with other notables of the Federalist period, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, were fascinating. Though his absences from home were long and difficult, he maintained a loving relationship with his wife Abigail, and took one or the other of his sons with him on his government assignments, when possible. His eldest son, John Quincy, especially thrived by being a close observer to important historical events and people. This later served him well when he was elected the sixth U.S. President. Although sometimes the details in the book become a little tedious, overall this is a most interesting read.
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Beverly Tauke (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-22 00:00>
As David McCullough unravels intrigues of America's second President, one of the most sobering mysteries revolves around the star-studded journey of John Adams' son John Quincy. The Adams family offered a launching pad for soaring John Q. but seemed to dig more of a grave for the three infancy-surviving siblings concocted from the same gene pool and molded by the same household.
The most striking sibling contrast flowing from McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning pen is that of John Quincy and younger brother Charles. These brothers shared journeys with father John to Europe, as well as overlapping education and grand adventures that were more intertwined than those of sister Nabby and brother Thomas.
For John Quincy, his maiden voyage to Europe produced unusual opportunities for emotional intimacy between the precocious son and his austere father. John Quincy's linguistic skill and winsome ways won admiration of the diplomatic community, to the great delight of his proud dad. But when nine-year-old Charles traveled abroad, the younger brother's debut on the European stage was in the shadow of his popular elder sibling. Gifted John Quincy was recruited as a junior diplomat to Russia while Charles was shipped back home and to boarding school. His family isolation grew as mother Abigail and sister Nabby joined John and John Quincy in Europe.
As McCullough weaves John Adams' tale we see repeated abandonment of Charles as John Quincy thrives in diplomatic collaboration with their father. John Q. climbed to stellar success as one of America's greatest ever diplomats before duplicating his father's capture of the White House. But as McCullough tells it, poor Charles seemed to implode at every turn. His law career sputtered into failure. He lost life savings entrusted to him by family star John Quincy, alienating his parents in the process. John Adams bitterly complained that his younger son was a bigger loser than even King David's notorious son Absalom, who was at least enterprising. The father's scathing take on son Charles was that he was "a mere rake, blood and beast... a madman possessed of the devil... I renounce him." Charles dulled the pain of failure and rejection with alcohol. Abandoning his wife and children, he died tragically at a tender age of 30.
As McCullough draws us into the private triumphs and trauma of this remarkable Founding Family, the courage, virtues and sheer brilliance of John, Abigail and John Quincy seem truly extraordinary. But John and Abigail's noble parental ambitions also seemed at times to purge the family of human warmth essential to nurture young hearts. Somewhat muted in McCullough's John Adams is a spirit-crushing alienation seen in the tortured lives of Nabby, Charles and Thomas. Nor does McCullough track a repeat pattern noted by other historians in John Quincy's children - an emotionally malnourished third generation that lurched into alcoholism, tragedy and premature death.
As a family counselor, I find buried in the subplots of McCullough's depiction a great John Adams' gift to our own generation, if only we can learn this from him: Brilliant or not, famous or obscure, families that cannot or will not nurture their children's hearts risk a grim legacy. This isn't psycho-babble. It's a hazard flare blazing still from imploded lives of the John Adams clan.
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Gene Twilley (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-22 00:00>
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, 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.
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1 2 Total 2 pages 15 items |
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