Deep Reads: "John Adams" (2001)
Sunday, September 5, 2010 at 12:02AM 
Pretty easy choice. After reading "Truman," I knew I had to read this finally, especially as I liked the HBO miniseries so much.
McCullough does such a great job of according Adams his rightful place in American history. More than any man, he's behind the Declaration of Independence, even if Jefferson gets the credit for penning the text.
I'm only about a quarter through, and I keep the book by my bed for nights when I have trouble falling asleep, which means I treat it like an old friend.
My favorite bits all have to do with Adams' worrying about whether his life will have meaning and how he deals with his insecurities--very humanizing.
I wasn't ecstatic about Paul Giamatti being picked to play him, because Giamatti, while a great actor, doesn't exactly scream out New Englander. But I loved David Morse as George Washington, a guy who deserves a serious HBO treatment all the more.
The Adams family has long been a quiet obsession of mine, along with Vonne, because we lived in Quincy for a couple of years and Vonne worked in Braintree, where Adams was born and lived. So we're very familiar with all the historical sites.
Reader Comments (4)
After all your great advice on American autobiographys I'm amazed you are only reading this now. It has been my all-time favorite & I'm happy to hear you are finally having the enriching satisfaction of enjoying it now. Thanks to McCullough we now have the true insight into one of our greatest founding fathers.
Well, I can't say John Adams is one of my favorites, but it is certainly a very good book. The relationship between Adams and Franklin is fascinating.
Speaking of great bios, I strongly recommend Jean Edward Smith's Grant. This makes a compelling case for Grant's 2 terms as President, as well as providing a good summary of his early life.
Another interesting bio I've read recently is Donald Smythe's Pershing - General of the Armies. I think the WWI leadership deserves more study as it really set the tone for the US approach to being a Great Power (building, of course, on TR's foundation.)
Thanks David for the book recommendations. I also found the Adams relationship with Jefferson both during their presidential tenures & in the letters exchange during the twilight of their lives to be most fascinating as well as their simultaneous deaths on our nations 50th anniversary.
Nobody liked Adams because he was obnoxious and arrogant. Nevertheless, Washington, Franklin, and Adams are almost certainly the 3 people most responsible for achieving US independence. Jefferson supplied the high-sounding bulls--t, but not much else. I also think that Adams (along with Abigail) made his greatest contributions to American history in the form of his son (JQA) and grandson (CFA). There is an old PBS series called "The Adams Chronicles" that is a little dry and slow, but has a lot of good history (much more than the overly melodramatic HBO series). It also has William Daniels, who was magnificent as JA in "1776" doing an equally fabulous JQA. You can get it on DVD.