John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, by Fred Kaplan
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John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, by Fred Kaplan
Best PDF Ebook John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, by Fred Kaplan
In this fresh and illuminating biography, Fred Kaplan brings into focus the dramatic life of John Quincy Adams—the little-known and much-misunderstood sixth president of the United States and the first son of John and Abigail Adams—and reveals how Adams' inspiring, progressive vision guided his life and helped shape the course of America.
Kaplan draws on a trove of unpublished archival material to trace Adams' evolution from his childhood during the Revolutionary War to his brilliant years as Secretary of State to his time in the White House and beyond. He examines Adams' myriad sides: the public and private man, the statesman and writer, the wise thinker and passionate advocate, the leading abolitionist and fervent federalist. In these ways, Adams was a predecessor of Lincoln and, later, FDR and Obama. This sweeping biography makes clear how Adams' forward-thinking values, his definition of leadership, and his vision for the nation's future is as much about twenty-first-century America as it is about Adams' own time.
Meticulously researched and masterfully written, John Quincy Adams paints a rich portrait of this brilliant leader and his vision for a young nation.
John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, by Fred Kaplan - Amazon Sales Rank: #374326 in Books
- Brand: Kaplan, Fred
- Published on: 2015-06-09
- Released on: 2015-06-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.10" w x 5.31" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 672 pages
John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, by Fred Kaplan From Booklist *Starred Review* A failed president is the popular conception of the sixth chief executive of the U.S., but Kaplan’s open mind as he diligently researched this much-maligned figure and conceived the biographical picture he would construct based on his wide reading and study results in a much broader understanding. With great felicity of style, Kaplan, who is not only an esteemed biographer (his Thomas Carlyle, written in 1993, was a finalist for two top prizes) but also a professor of English, pays respect to his academic background by following as a major thread in this monumental biography Adams’ giftedness as a writer, as his many public writings and copiously kept diary attest. An outstanding diplomat prior to his occupancy of the White House, Adams, son of the second president, stumbled badly in the highest office in the land. But Kaplan sees not an inadequate man in a position he could not manage. He sees instead a “visionary,” who stood for a united American republic free of the divisiveness of slavery. The lack of accomplishments during Adams’ one-term presidency was the result, as Kaplan depicts it, of his enemies’ concerted and united effort to thwart any of the programs he endeavored to achieve. --Brad Hooper
Review “Kaplan has produced a full-length narrative of this remarkable life, rendered in lucid and loving prose. . . . Kaplan rightly portrays Adams as a man ahead of his time. . . . A valuable book about an important American figure.” (Robert W. Merry, The New York Times Book Review)“An engaging, well-crafted, and deeply researched biography that puts particular emphasis on John Quincy’s rich life of the mind.” (Susan Dunn, The New York Review of Books)“In undertaking John Quincy Adams, Fred Kaplan. . . clearly is trying to do for the son what David McCullough did for the father. . . . It was a notable life, marked now by a notable biography.” (The Boston Globe)“John Quincy Adams should be required reading inside the Beltway. . . . Kaplan has penned a richly detailed canticle to his subject. . . . Kaplan’s narrative is both riveting and brimming with telling details.” (The Christian Science Monitor)“Well-researched and well-written. . . . An admiring and admirable account.” (The Wall Street Journal)“Insightful and engrossing. . . . As Kaplan makes plain in his own clear and finely chiseled prose, John Quincy Adams was, at his core, a writer. . . . A fine biography.” (Annette Gordon-Reed, The American Scholar)“An exemplary portrait. . . . Kaplan is accomplished at the art of biography.” (Louis P. Masur, The Los Angeles Review of Books)“Beautifully researched and written. . . . Biography fans, don’t miss this one.” (The Washingtonian, Best Books of the Month)“As well-written, comprehensive, and satisfying account of Adams’s personal life and career as we have seen in print.” (The Washington Times)“There is much to praise in this extensively researched book, which is certainly one of the finest biographies of a sadly underrated man. . . . These are the marks of a master historian and biographer.” (Carol Berkin, The Washington Post)
From the Back Cover
In this fresh and illuminating biography, Fred Kaplan brings into focus the dramatic life of John Quincy Adams—the little-known and much-misunderstood sixth president of the United States and the first son of John and Abigail Adams—and reveals how Adams' inspiring, progressive vision guided his life and helped shape the course of America.
Kaplan draws on a trove of unpublished archival material to trace Adams' evolution from his childhood during the Revolutionary War to his brilliant years as Secretary of State to his time in the White House and beyond. He examines Adams' myriad sides: the public and private man, the statesman and writer, the wise thinker and passionate advocate, the leading abolitionist and fervent federalist who believed strongly in both individual liberty and the government's role as an engine of progress and prosperity. In these ways—and in his energy, empathy, sharp intellect, and powerful gift with words both spoken and written—Adams was a predecessor of Lincoln and, later, FDR and Obama. Indeed, this sweeping biography, rich in literary analysis and historical detail, makes clear how Adams' forward-thinking values, his definition of leadership, and his vision for the nation's future is as much about twenty-first-century America as it is about Adams' own time.
Meticulously researched and masterfully written, John Quincy Adams paints a rich portrait of this brilliant leader and his vision for a young nation.
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Most helpful customer reviews
105 of 114 people found the following review helpful. A painstaking literary biography By Will Barto Biographies are difficult to write. A biographer seldom approaches the subject with a clean slate. Many (most?) presidential biographers approach the subject from a historical or political perspective and emphasize events or societal currents, sometimes to the detriment of the subject of the biography. In the case of this biography, we have a retired English professor writing a biography of an extremely prolific political figure who had real literary talent. The focus of this work is clearly on the person and writings of Adams rather than other aspects of his life. And yet, even accepting this prospective bias, I am left unsatisfied by this work.On the positive side, it is an exhaustive study of John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, 17-year Congressman, Senator, Secretary of State, professor, author, diarist (50 volumes!), and anti-slavery advocate. His is a remarkable story, and the author tells it in great detail, relying on correspondence and journals to provide a first-hand account of many incidents in Adams' life.That being noted, I found this book to be very tiresome, oddly organized, and lacking in historical and political context. For example, the author spends over 100 pages on the childhood and education of Adams but less than 40 on his presidency. What many authorities consider to be Adams' most significant period, his time in Congress, receives only a bit more coverage than childhood and early legal career. The author mentions significant historical events, e.g., the XYZ affair on page 156, without previous explanation. Elsewhere, the author begins to discuss a topic but leaves off without completing the discussion or explaining the significance of the matters mentioned. For example, the author mentions that Adams sent dozens of letters home from his travels in Silesia and was open to the possibility of their publication, and yet no mention is made of their ultimate publication in a 387-page book titled "Letters on Silesia" by a London publisher. The whole episode in Prussia and the travels in Silesia is given quite extended treatment in a chapter almost as long as the chapter on Adams as president, while Unger - another Adams biographer - considers this period in a chapter of just 15 pages, a much more appropriate allocation of space and effort.At various points in this otherwise literary-focused biography, there are interesting insinuations of political insight that attempt to co-opt Adams' legacy for progressive politics, notwithstanding the popular and long-standing view that Adams is properly considered a moderate conservative (even Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a very progressive scholar, put Adams in that part of the political spectrum). At one point, the author describes Adams' political legacy as "land-grant universities, the Panama Canal, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Federal Reserve, and the Interstate Highway System," and the back cover of the book links Adams to "FDR and Obama." Suffice it to say that the book did not persuade me that the Adams lineage extended quite so far in that direction, and further elaboration (in an already overlong book) would have been necessary to properly substantiate such an assertion.A biographer must sift the sources and make assessments of the relative weight of various segments of the subject's life. These tasks are especially important when dealing with someone whose personal diaries extend to 50 volumes, for whom there are many public records and speeches, and who has been the subject of many other biographies. This book would have benefited from a heavy and objective editing, and, absent such, I cannot recommend this book to any but fans of the author or enthusiasts of Adams for whom less lengthy - and more effective - biographies do not suffice.
75 of 83 people found the following review helpful. I thought long and hard about how I was going to rate this book . . . By David Zampino . . . and give it a reluctant -- but earned -- three stars.First -- the good bits (and there were quite a few!) The most valuable part of of this book begins with the fact that it was written at all. Critical biographies of significant leaders who have fallen out of the mainstream of public view are extremely important because they provide context and background and can thus provide a different and unique perspective that can be missed.I learned a great deal about a President about whom I already knew a fair amount. I knew that he was well-traveled in his youth -- but had no idea as to the extent of that travel. I knew that he was, at one point, Minister to Russia -- but was unaware of several of his other diplomatic postings. I knew that he was a remarkably well-educated and well-read individual -- but not to the depths of the matter. I knew that he served for 17 years with distinction in the United States House of Representatives following his Presidency -- but didn't previously know that this was public service that he felt was his duty to undertake -- even against his family wishes, and, in the end, to the detriment of his health.In short, I found that I had learned a great deal -- and that what I learned was interesting and informative.There were two glaring negatives, each one costing the book a star.1) Both in the promotional material sent to me (understandable) AND in the blurbs and introduction to the book itself (much less appropriate) both the author and the publisher go out of their way to pre-dispose the reader to a particular conclusion: namely, that John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Barak Obama viewed the Presidency in similar ways and had similar progressive points of view which guided their respective Presidencies. Now this may be true or this may be false (and in my view, the author did not make that case) but as an avid reader of history and historical biography, I want to be allowed to form my own conclusions without prompting.2) In a somewhat similar vein, there were times in the text when one could not be sure if Quincy Adams' view was being presented, or if Fred Kaplan's view about what he thought Quincy Adams' view was (or should have been) was being presented. For example, during the discussion of the Mexican-American War during the Polk administration, it was clear that Quincy Adams opposed both the war and the President. So far, so good. But while the author was analyzing the opinions of the House during the war, it was difficult to ascertain whether Quincy Adams felt the war was illegal; whether Kaplan felt the war was illegal (a subject for a different book); or whether Kaplan "felt" that Quincy Adams felt the war was illegal. In other words, was I reading Quincy Adams' view (which is what I wanted to learn) or was I reading the author's view (which wasn't supposed to be the point of the book.)Just let me read the book and form my own conclusions . . . if I want further information, I know how to find it.
61 of 68 people found the following review helpful. UNEVEN By JoeV At the risk of stating the obvious, John Quincy Adams should be remembered for more than being the son of a Founding Father and a one-term President. So a new biography to bring him out of the historical fog is a welcome and well worthy endeavor. Unfortunately - at least for this reader - this book isn't it.First, this cradle to the grave biography is a very concerted effort to humanize JQA; a very admirable task, for much like his father, John Quincy took his public service and sense of duty very seriously; and therefore also much like his father, he was not the easiest to person to "like". The reader is presented with JQA's extensive reading list, his writings/ opinions and prose/poetry - much of this quoted directly from his letters, speeches and his lifelong journal. So there are a lot of quotes - too many for this reader - this over-reliance resulting in the narrative both losing its flow and poignancy.Don't get me wrong, there is much I learned here - particularly how much JQA traveled during his lifetime - this when 50 miles was a "journey" - how hard he worked - and another for instance - Mrs. JQA's health issues. Poor Louisa Adams seemingly never feeling well for any extended period of time causing much concern and never permitting the marriage to blossom into the partnership the senior Adams and Abigail had.One other quirk of the narrative worth mentioning here. Events in JQA's life are stated - his marriage, appointments, elections - with the circumstances leading to them subsequently covered. Not necessarily a bad technique in and of itself, but here the transitions aren't smooth and at times, aren't coherent - which became confusing.Lastly the closer JQA came to center stage in his life - meaning Washington, DC - the less detailed this narrative becomes - his presidency and time served in Congress - almost 25 years - covered superficially in the last 140 pages of this almost 600 page book.John Quincy's was an accomplished life - many of his achievements outside of the public/historical spotlight, i.e. the Monroe Doctrine, the Treaty of Ghent. He was much more than simply his father's son and much like David McCullough's bio did for his father, deserves to come out of the historical shadows. This book makes a valiant effort, but alas, results only in a step in the right direction.
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