John Adams Book Report

John Adams, by David McCullough

The book, John Adams, by David McCullough, is a powerfully written biography of one of our nation's greatest heroes. This biography explores Adams' life in great depth, unveiling a side to his life unbeknownst to those who have never studied his life in great detail. Through diary entries, letters, and various other documents, the reader grasps a sense of what Adams' day to day life was like, and is also able to grasp the enormity of his lifetime accomplishments. In the battle for independence from Great Britain, the founding forefathers of our country came together, uniting for a common cause they would end up fighting for with their lives. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel
He wants his readers to gain a sense of the realness of these people, who worked so hard for it to be free. He says, "We call them the Founding Fathers, in tribute, but tend to see them as distant and a bit unreal, like figures in a costume pageant. Yet very real they were, real as all that stirred their ‘hearts and minds,' and it as meaning in our time as never before." The reason he may have chosen John Adams to write about as opposed to Adams' co-revolutionaries, is the number of primary sources relating to Adams. Many of the letters were found at the Massachusetts Historical Society, there were letters between John and Abigail Adams, Abigail and her sister, and numerous others. John's diary entries also made a nice addition to the story, building up to the realness of this man. This book was first published in 2001, in New York. Though probably released before the September 11 attacks, it is assurable that if it had been released after, the direct correlation of the American hero would be made of John Adams. I think that the author's goal, in writing this book, is to present the reality of this particular co-revolutionary, which through all the primary documents especially, he was very successful in doing. The single most memorable thing that I learned about were the relationships that Adams had, with other familiar names. This book had really helped me to understand the happenings that went on in the life period of Adams, but also really just how all these historical co-revolutionaries and Founding Fathers were all