John Adams : party of one / James Grant.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grant, James, 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Adams, John, 1735-1826.

Presidents--United States--Biography.

Presidents.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

viii, 530 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Summary:

John Adams was an undiplomatic diplomat and an impolitic politician-a fierce revolutionary, yet a detached and reluctant leader of the nation he helped to found. Few American public figures have ever been more devoted to doing the right thing, or more contemputous of doing the merely popular thing. Yet his Yankee-bred fixation with ethical propriety and fiscal conservatism never stood in the way of his doing what was necessary. Adams hated debt but, as minister to the Netherlands during the Revolution, was America's premier junk-bond salesman. And though raised as a traditional Massachusetts Congregationalist, Adams was instrumental in bringing about the consecration of the first American Episcopal bishops. He was a warm and magnanimous friend and, on occasion, a man who fully vindicated the famous judgment of a rival he detested: Adams, said Benjamin Franklin, "means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, but, sometimes, and in some things, is absolutely out of his senses."

James Grant examines this complex and often contradictory Founding Father in the most well-rounded and multifaceted portrait of Adams to date. Chronicling Adams's life-from his beginnings on a hardscrabble Massachusetts farm to the Continental Congress, the Court of St. James, and the White House-Grant traces the words and deeds of one of our most learned but politically star-crossed leaders.

Contents:

Prologue: "More Fortunate than All My Fellow Citizens" 3

1 Son of Puritans 15

2 To Live and Die in Braintree 31

3 "Glowing Like Furnaces" 41

4 "From So Small a Spark" 52

5 "Hearty in the Cause" 70

6 In Defense of Captain Preston 85

7 "In Opposition to the Rising Sun" 99

8 Faith of Brattle Street 113

9 "A Man of 1774" 125

10 "Called by Providence" 143

11 Whirlwind 161

12 "Conquer or Die" 180

13 Making of a Diplomat 190

14 A Yankee in Paris 200

15 Constitution Monger 221

16 Fencing with Count Vergennes 233

17 Triumph in Amsterdam 248

18 Peacemaker, Junk-Bond Promoter 268

19 Joyous Reunion 296

20 Minister to the Court of St. James 311

21 Stuffed Shirt 341

22 Mr. Vice President 359

23 "President by Three Votes" 375

24 Party of One 403

25 Road to Tranquillity 430.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [499]-507) and index.

ISBN:

0374113149

OCLC:

55220408

Publisher Number:

9780374113148

Online:

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