John Adams - David McCullough
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John Adams

Updated: 7 Sep 2020
In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second president of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the most moving love stories in American history. This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.
Actor
61 followers
48 FLIISTs
almost 5 years ago
Gyllenhaal has been rereading David McCullough’s biography of the second US president, John Adams, and is unsettling himself by noticing the “surprising and terrifying correlations in America to the civil war and pre-civil war times”.
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Actress
17 followers
69 FLIISTs
over 4 years ago
I think David McCullough is one of our national treasures. I've tried to branch out and read other historians' work, but nothing sticks with me or gets the pages turned as quickly as his books. John Adams is incredibly, meticulously researched; you feel as if McCullough has gone back and felt the fabric of their clothes, smelled the paper that they wrote to each other on. What he writes has heft, because it's not only facts—you get a real sense of his subjects' lives. I'm in Boston right now, and I see Braintree on the map, where Adams lived. I drive by it and think, "Oh my gosh, that was a day's travel for him? That's ten minutes from here!" There's nothing like reading history about your own country and walking where they walked. Nobody does a better job than McCullough.
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