John Adams Movie Tie-In

While the book does a perfectly respectable job of illuminating Adams' early life, key role in the American revolution, and overall character (as well as a substantial amount of space given over to his family life and his notable wife), it then does a seemingly inexplicable thing: it completely skips over THE ENTIRE DECADE in which any competent historian might be reasonably expected to cover such topics as: (1) How a U.S. diplomat with no substantial following among U.S. legislators became the first Vice-President of the United States; (2) The eight years Adams served in that position, a position he became the first of many to lament as woefully inconsequential, but which he later recalled with great pride for the support he had given to Washington (and which also saw his earliest and highly fateful clashes with Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and the partisans that quickly lined up behind them); and (3) The behind-the-scenes machinations that allowed this same man to succeed Washington as chief executive. Even if one were bound and determined to omit an entire decade from Adams' biography for whatever reason, is this really the decade most deserving of the chopping block? The highly significant latter days of Adams' tenure and the passage of power to Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans receive equally short shrift. Were it not, in fact, for the brief and woefully inadequate summaries of these otherwise neglected periods in Adams' life, I would suspect that my CD audio book set had somehow omitted at least two complete discs! I just don't get it. This book really won a Pulitzer Prize??

Lengthy but very good listening. The narrator is easy to listen to as well.

I listened to the 26 disc unabridged edition, all of it. If I were to do it over, I might have gone for the abridged CD set, with presumably less extraneous detail such as what was served for dinner or long quotes from letters. I often had to replay sections to fully understand the context. That said, this was a deep dive into the life of John Adams and the surrounding events and important people. I got a really good feel for Adams who heretofore had been little more for me than that he was the second president. There was a lot on Jefferson and Franklin, but less on Washington and other important figures. I also listened to McCullough’s “1776” which together with “Adams” gives a more complete picture of the American revolution and the war. He skips over a lot such as the War of 1812 or the presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and John Quincy, although there is a lot about Adam’s relationship to his son and particularly Abigail. It’s interesting to me how little U.S. politics have changed in our two-party system to the present day, Hamilton’s Federalists who wanted a strong central government versus Jefferson’s Republicans who were for states rights and minimal government. Also the politics were just as partisan, underhanded and dirty, except for Adams who comes out well in this book. This book inspires me to learn more about the early presidents. Having enjoyed “Truman” and the Wright Brothers, my next book will be his book on the Panama Canal.

After reading this excellent book (I could hardly set it down!), I gifted my elder son a hardback which he plans to share with my younger son when finished, and gifted my mother-in-law the unabridged audio version. I bought the audio cd for my mother-in-law because I absolutely love this book and thought she would too, but macular degeneration has robbed her of the pleasure and joy of reading--so I researched audio options. Initially I was in able to find reviews but then I saw the word "filter" and was finally able to read about the quality of the audio cd version. (This audio cd version doesn't include references.) Within the three audio-cd reviews, one expressed much of how I feel about this book. (I cried too when it came to an end and was agast when Jefferson didn't send his elegant congratulatory letter.) Thus I recommend reading the helpful and well written review referenced below which you will find under the audio cd reviews:

John Adams: A Prolific American
ByAdriannaon April 6, 2011