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Title: John Adams: A Life by John E. Ferling, Katherine E. Speirs ISBN: 0-945707-14-2 Publisher: American Political Biography Press Pub. Date: January, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.93 (30 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The definitive work
Comment: This book remains the best biography of our second president. Ferling manages to properly place Adams in the top tier of American Presidents, but at the same time recognizing his significant character flaws, including his occasional bouts of "insensibility" and his sometimes embarassing love for pomp and circumstance as when he would wear a sword at ceremonial events as President).
But the bulk of this biography charts the many roles that Adams played -- lawyer, delegate, ambassador, author, Vice-President and President -- and in each role, his decisions seemed to come down on the side of what he thought was right, no matter the personal consequences. His life was courageously lived, and he remains a titan in American history.
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the best biographies I have read
Comment: This book captured my attention from the first chapter. JOhn Adams was a fascinating person and left behind an extensive amount of his own words in journals and letters. The problem for a biographer is to make it interesting and Mr. Ferling does a wonderful job of showing the good and bad of John Adams.
I think the best part of this in-depth one volume biography is how the events taking place around John Adams as well as many of his important historical contemporaries are also explored, giving the reader a true vision as to how John Adams fit into the world of the 18th and early 19th century. Franklin, Sam Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton are all discussed and examined.
Although John Adams is not typically thought of as a notable president, after reading this book, you will understand why two recent polls of historians showed that he was rated as a "great" president who was as instrumental as any in the formation of the United States. By going directly against his own party while president, he was humiliated and initially ignored, but his actions were later realized to have likely saved the US from ruin soon after it's formation. If you are interested in John Adams, or colonial history...Buy This Book.
Rating: 4
Summary: John Adams: A Life
Comment: This is an excellent biography, following Adams from birth to death in one volume, and detailing both the positive and the negative aspects of the man clearly and fairly. I've been fascinated by Adams ever since seeing the movie "1776", which gives a marvellous "based on fact" dramatization of the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence, and this book gave me a more thorough, more strictly factual look at the man. I wasn't disappointed on that score; he's just as interesting without the dramatic liberties taken by the movie.
My only quibble with this book is that the editing, at least in the edition that I have, is rather poor. There are numerous errors in grammatical structure and word choice, the kind of errors that I have become accustomed to in mass market paperbacks but refuse to accept in a scholarly historical work. Things like "he requested that the Congress name his successor be named in his place" and "...the British ... was ready" and "the New England sates" (rather than "States") and "the House of Representative" (even back then, there was more than one representative in the House) and "the dreary weather proved not be a herald of the months ahead" and many others. I understand that mistakes happen, and don't demand perfection. But there are just too many of this kind of error in this book for me to say that it is well-written; probably two dozen, if I had to guess.
Overall, this is a worthwhile biography of a fascinating president. Hopefully, future editions will clean up the writing a bit more.
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Title: Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution by John E. Ferling ISBN: 0195150848 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic by John E. Ferling ISBN: 0195159241 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams by Joseph J. Ellis ISBN: 0393311333 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Thomas Jefferson : Life, A by Willard Sterne Randall ISBN: 0060976179 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 03 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: John Adams by David McCullough ISBN: 0743223136 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 03 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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