John Adams

Dates Covered: 1710 - 1826
ISBN: 0684813637
HH Rating:

Our Take

We feel compelled to weigh in on this one since it was such a runaway best-seller during the summer of 2001. David McCullough (of Truman fame) is one of our favorite authors, and it pains us to see him on autopilot like this. A biography should be more than a convenient arrangement of the subject's personal correspondence. Yet McCullough relies almost entirely on President Adams (quite voluminous) diaries and letters to his wife. The only supporting material seems to left over from a book on Jefferson McCullough abandoned. Read this if you want to know what being John Adams was like. Don't read it if you have any interest in gaining insight into how his life fit into the great drama of the founding of America.

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