John Adams.

• Author: Kreyche, Gerald F.
• Position: Books - Review

JOHN ADAMS BY DAVID MCCULLOUGH SIMON AND SCHUSTER 2001, 751 PAGES, $35.00

He was praised; he was vilified. He was a deeply religious man, yet a Yankee farmer whose vanity and ambition could not be suppressed. He was a loving husband and father, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a lifelong patriot. Nonetheless, the press insisted that, at heart, he was a "monarchist." A graduate of Harvard, his name was John Adams, and he served two terms as vice-president under George Washington and one term as president of the U.S.

This biography of a man sandwiched between the presidencies of Washington and Thomas Jefferson is one of the great books of our time. The author, David McCullough, won the Pulitzer Prize for his earlier biography of Pres. Harry S. Truman and, reading this work, one can see why. It is a masterpiece, a contribution to the literature, and a must read for anyone interested in the birth of our nation. Truly, it is a wonder that we made it, for all the odds were stacked against us.

True then as now, politics makes strange bedfellows, as we follow the machinations of men such as Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, et al. Adams was a one-term president, largely because of the undermining of his reelection campaign by a fellow Federalist, Hamilton. Adam's perspicacious wife, Abigail, called the latter a Cassius, a Bonaparte, and an...