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The American Presidents #2
John Adams
A revealing look at the true beginning of American politics
Until recently rescued by David McCullough, John Adams has always been overshadowed by Washington and Jefferson. Volatile, impulsive, irritable, and self-pitying, Adams seemed temperamentally unsuited for the presidency. Yet in many ways he was the perfect successor to Washington in terms of ability, experience, and popularity.
Possessed of a far-ranging intelligence, Adams took office amid the birth of the government and multiple crises. Besides maintaining neutrality and regaining peace, his administration created the Department of the Navy, put the army on a surer footing, and left a solvent treasury. One of his shrewdest acts was surely the appointment of moderate Federalist John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Though he was a Federalist, he sought to work outside the still-forming party system. In the end, this would be Adams's greatest failing and most useful lesson to later leaders.
Until recently rescued by David McCullough, John Adams has always been overshadowed by Washington and Jefferson. Volatile, impulsive, irritable, and self-pitying, Adams seemed temperamentally unsuited for the presidency. Yet in many ways he was the perfect successor to Washington in terms of ability, experience, and popularity.
Possessed of a far-ranging intelligence, Adams took office amid the birth of the government and multiple crises. Besides maintaining neutrality and regaining peace, his administration created the Department of the Navy, put the army on a surer footing, and left a solvent treasury. One of his shrewdest acts was surely the appointment of moderate Federalist John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Though he was a Federalist, he sought to work outside the still-forming party system. In the end, this would be Adams's greatest failing and most useful lesson to later leaders.
200 pages, Hardcover
First published June 11, 2003
43 people are currently reading
467 people want to read
About the author
John Patrick Diggins
24 books9 followersJohn Patrick Diggins was a professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center, the author of more than a dozen books on widely varied subjects in American intellectual history.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
December 12, 2019
This may be a good book, but it certainly didn’t give me what I wanted. Not knowing much about the Adams presidency, I wanted a biography that was: 1) brief, 2) concentrated on the principal events of Adams' life, with a particular emphasis on the presidency, and 3) would give me a few ideas and interpretations that would help me understand Adams' place in American history. I’ll say this much for it: it was brief. But it gave me far too many ideas, often interrupting the narrative to do so, until I could barely see past the interpretations to get a good glimpse of the facts.
Perhaps if I had known something of the author, John Patrick Diggins, I would not have been so surprised. He is after all, an historian of ideas, interested primarily in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and revealing the great practical gulf between them. He also does not seem to have an ideological axe to grind: although he has a fondness for the “Lyrical Left” (the American pacifist left before the “Great War” and—later—prior to Vietnam), he also considers Ronald Reagan to be one of the two or three truly great presidents. (Then again, he sees Reagan as closer to Thomas Paine than Edmund Burke, so I have reason to doubt his judgment.)
Diggins sees Adams as a president who believed that only through the vigorous exercise of a strong executive could American properly balance the interests of the aristocracy (merchant or landed) and that of the people as a whole. He strove to be above faction, and because of this the Hamiltonians (with whom he was initially allied) considered him either traitorous or emotionally unstable, and the Jeffersonians labeled him as a dangerous autocrat who aspired to become king.
Neither was true, but Adams, an intensely private man, had neither the desire nor the skills to explain his decisions. To complicate matters, The French Revolution, and Britain’s subsequent war against the First Republic, not only stirred up emotions connected with a quarter century of allegiances and emnities, but also caused revolutionary fervor—and revolutionary fear—to rise again in American hearts. The presidential campaign of 1800 grew vicious, Hamilton aided Jefferson, and soon John Adams became our first one term president.
I learned a good deal from Diggins' book, but not as much as I would have liked. For me, Adams—both as man and as president—remains shadowy and undefined.
April 26, 2022
America's Philosopher President
John Adams (1735 --1826) was rescued from relative obsurity by David McCullough's popular and accessible biography. Engaging as it is, McCullough's work has little on the thought and writings of John Adams and on the impact of his thinking on American government and on Adams's own presidency. John Patrick Diggins's short biography, written as part of the American Presidents series, helps remedy this lack. It provides a deeper picture of an American political philosopher and president. Diggins is a distinguished professor of American history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has written widely on American intellectual history, including books on Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, pragmatism, and the American left.
Adams was born to a family of modest means in Massachusetts. Following graduation from Harvard, he became a lawyer and married Abigail Smith. Adams early became involved in the Revolutionary movement and served in the Continental Congress. During the Revolutionary War, Adams was abroad where he made vital contributions to the war effort in France and Holland. He helped draft the treaty by which the United States secured its independence. Adams served restlessly as Washington's vice-president and then became the second president in a close election against Thomas Jefferson, who became vice-president. After his narrow defeat by Jefferson for reelection in 1800, Adams retired to his home in Quincy.
More important than these external events, Adams was a writer and a thinker who wrote works in support of American independence in the 1770s and books expounding his political philosophy and his understanding of American constitutionalism in the late 1780s and continuing early into his tenure as vice-president. Adams continued his writings in his long retirement, particularly in a wonderful series of letters he exchanged with his former rival, Jefferson.
Diggins gives a good overview of a complex body of thought. Adams was opposed to the French Revolution and to writers such as Thomas Paine whose works helped to spearhead the American Revolution. Adams developed a philosophy based upon the unreliable and depraved nature of the human heart and its ambitions for power, wealth and success. He argued that a diverse government structured to allow for the wealthy classes and the common people, headed by a strong executive, would be the best way to restrain human greed and folly and to channel these traits for the common good. He objected to the French Revolution for its levelling tendencies -- for its attempt to obliterate distinctions, which Adams thought, were ingrained in the human desire to compete and excel, and which could not be artifically supressed. Adams also objected to the French Revolution because it was not properly succeeded with a solid institutional form of government. The American Revolution, which unlike the French revolution, was not based upon classes within the United States, and the American Constitution, with its separation of powers and strong executive were, for Adams, the antithesis of the French Revolution.
During his presidency, Adams was excoriated by his fellow-Federalist Alexander Hamilton, who found Adams weak and vacillating and by Thomas Jefferson, who attacked what he claimed were aristocratic and monarchical tendencies in Adams. Yet Adams worked carefully and delicately to avoid a war with France, the most significant accomplishment of his presidency. He established a tax system and pardoned a group of protesters who had been found guilty of treason by opposing it. Adams strengthened the military and left the budget with a surplus at the conclusion of his presidency. During his presidency, Congress enacted, and Adams enforced, the Alien and Sedition Acts, which Diggins somewhat downplays in his account.
In 1800, under attack from both Hamilton and Jefferson, Adams came in a close third to Jefferson and Burr in the presidential race. Jefferson prevailed in the House of Representatives when Hamilton lent his influence and support. This hotly contested and little-known election marked a watershed in American politics as it marked a peaceful transition from Adams to a leader and a party with a far different stated political agenda. The American era of party politics, based upon images, perceptions, and the pursuit of power, had begun.
Diggins is not afraid to state his own positions, and he shows a marked sympathy for John Adams over his rival, Jefferson. He sees Adams as a unique example of a president who tried to govern based upon principle rather than party or power. Together with Lincoln, Jefferson, Madison, and perhaps Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson, Diggins places Adams in a small group of American presidents who demonstrated intellectual leadership and accomplishment prior to and in the Executive Office.
For Diggins, Adams's strengths as a thinker, together with his curmudgeonly disposition, led to the weaknesses of his presidency. He writes (p. 174) "At times the sin of pride cursed the Adams presidency. He often preferred to work alone, rarely sharing his thoughts or seeking the input of others as we was making up his mind. ... Adams was one of America's most solitary presidents, and the isolation of the mind, while healthy for poetry or philosophy, is fatal in the sphere of politics.... politics dwells in the present, in bargains and distortions, maneuvers and manipulations, and other strategies of exigency that had no appeal to a thinker better at analyzing power than dealing with people."
Diggins has written a thoughtful introduction to a thinker and president who remains incompletely understood. This short book should inspire reflection on Adams and on the nature of the political system which he helped bequeath to us.
Robin Friedman
John Adams (1735 --1826) was rescued from relative obsurity by David McCullough's popular and accessible biography. Engaging as it is, McCullough's work has little on the thought and writings of John Adams and on the impact of his thinking on American government and on Adams's own presidency. John Patrick Diggins's short biography, written as part of the American Presidents series, helps remedy this lack. It provides a deeper picture of an American political philosopher and president. Diggins is a distinguished professor of American history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has written widely on American intellectual history, including books on Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, pragmatism, and the American left.
Adams was born to a family of modest means in Massachusetts. Following graduation from Harvard, he became a lawyer and married Abigail Smith. Adams early became involved in the Revolutionary movement and served in the Continental Congress. During the Revolutionary War, Adams was abroad where he made vital contributions to the war effort in France and Holland. He helped draft the treaty by which the United States secured its independence. Adams served restlessly as Washington's vice-president and then became the second president in a close election against Thomas Jefferson, who became vice-president. After his narrow defeat by Jefferson for reelection in 1800, Adams retired to his home in Quincy.
More important than these external events, Adams was a writer and a thinker who wrote works in support of American independence in the 1770s and books expounding his political philosophy and his understanding of American constitutionalism in the late 1780s and continuing early into his tenure as vice-president. Adams continued his writings in his long retirement, particularly in a wonderful series of letters he exchanged with his former rival, Jefferson.
Diggins gives a good overview of a complex body of thought. Adams was opposed to the French Revolution and to writers such as Thomas Paine whose works helped to spearhead the American Revolution. Adams developed a philosophy based upon the unreliable and depraved nature of the human heart and its ambitions for power, wealth and success. He argued that a diverse government structured to allow for the wealthy classes and the common people, headed by a strong executive, would be the best way to restrain human greed and folly and to channel these traits for the common good. He objected to the French Revolution for its levelling tendencies -- for its attempt to obliterate distinctions, which Adams thought, were ingrained in the human desire to compete and excel, and which could not be artifically supressed. Adams also objected to the French Revolution because it was not properly succeeded with a solid institutional form of government. The American Revolution, which unlike the French revolution, was not based upon classes within the United States, and the American Constitution, with its separation of powers and strong executive were, for Adams, the antithesis of the French Revolution.
During his presidency, Adams was excoriated by his fellow-Federalist Alexander Hamilton, who found Adams weak and vacillating and by Thomas Jefferson, who attacked what he claimed were aristocratic and monarchical tendencies in Adams. Yet Adams worked carefully and delicately to avoid a war with France, the most significant accomplishment of his presidency. He established a tax system and pardoned a group of protesters who had been found guilty of treason by opposing it. Adams strengthened the military and left the budget with a surplus at the conclusion of his presidency. During his presidency, Congress enacted, and Adams enforced, the Alien and Sedition Acts, which Diggins somewhat downplays in his account.
In 1800, under attack from both Hamilton and Jefferson, Adams came in a close third to Jefferson and Burr in the presidential race. Jefferson prevailed in the House of Representatives when Hamilton lent his influence and support. This hotly contested and little-known election marked a watershed in American politics as it marked a peaceful transition from Adams to a leader and a party with a far different stated political agenda. The American era of party politics, based upon images, perceptions, and the pursuit of power, had begun.
Diggins is not afraid to state his own positions, and he shows a marked sympathy for John Adams over his rival, Jefferson. He sees Adams as a unique example of a president who tried to govern based upon principle rather than party or power. Together with Lincoln, Jefferson, Madison, and perhaps Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson, Diggins places Adams in a small group of American presidents who demonstrated intellectual leadership and accomplishment prior to and in the Executive Office.
For Diggins, Adams's strengths as a thinker, together with his curmudgeonly disposition, led to the weaknesses of his presidency. He writes (p. 174) "At times the sin of pride cursed the Adams presidency. He often preferred to work alone, rarely sharing his thoughts or seeking the input of others as we was making up his mind. ... Adams was one of America's most solitary presidents, and the isolation of the mind, while healthy for poetry or philosophy, is fatal in the sphere of politics.... politics dwells in the present, in bargains and distortions, maneuvers and manipulations, and other strategies of exigency that had no appeal to a thinker better at analyzing power than dealing with people."
Diggins has written a thoughtful introduction to a thinker and president who remains incompletely understood. This short book should inspire reflection on Adams and on the nature of the political system which he helped bequeath to us.
Robin Friedman
July 23, 2020
Here’s what I knew about John Adams before reading John Patrick Diggins’s biography:
****Adams was the second president of the United States.
Okay, that’s it. Seriously, that was the extent of my knowledge of the man, other than the fact that Paul Giamatti played him in a mini-series that I haven’t seen.
While Diggins’s biography is short (176 pages, all told, with about 20-plus pages of end notes and index), it is dense with information. I assume Diggins writes the same way that he lectures (he is a history professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York), which is in an avuncular, erudite, and verbose manner. He most likely has a huge following of history students who find him fascinating.
Diggins’s subject matter may not be the most fascinating president in history, but don’t tell Diggins that. In his short book, Diggins attempts to give Adams the credit he is due for helping to create this country, and, for the most part, he succeeds.
Here’s a (not so) short rundown of the pertinent information and some facts that I just found really interesting about Adams:
****He was really smart. I know that sounds like one of those “duh!” statements, because Adams was, like, one of the Founding Fathers, but he was, by many accounts, an intellectual powerhouse. Short by stature (especially stuck between behemoths George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both 6’ 2” to Adams’s 5’7”), his contemporaries nevertheless looked up to him as a great mind. He also wrote a lot. Seriously, the guy would write and publish a book during bathroom breaks. He also carried on a lifelong epistolary relationship with Jefferson to the day they died, which was, weirdly, the same day: July 4, 1826. He is also known for his many beautiful love letters that he wrote to his wife, Abigail, which leads me to the second fascinating tidbit:
****His wife was a super-awesome feminist long before feminism was a thing. Besides being an outspoken, strong woman who was clearly an equal in mind and heart with her husband, Abigail was also a devoted, loving wife. Likewise, John was smitten and equally devoted. They considered themselves best friends as well as lovers, which is, I have found, the secret to a healthy and happy marriage, and theirs was.
****Adams was often wrongly accused of being a monarchist, but a lot of that was because Jefferson was an asshole and wasn’t above smear campaigns (he basically stole Adams’s second term) that twisted Adams’s writing to make it look like he was for big government. In truth, Adams was for a strong government, because he felt that, unchecked, society would fall into a quagmire of chaos and arbitrary divisiveness that pitted groups against groups, rich against poor, strong against weak, etc. Jefferson, who essentially created the Republican party (a slightly different party than the one we know now, but not by much), believed in stuff like state’s rights and was against federal overreach of any kind. Jefferson was almost a textbook libertarian, because he believed that the people can govern themselves. A nice idea, but Adams (rightly) thought it was bullshit: “[T]o Adams, it was the arbitrariness of society that makes the rules of government necessary. Society on its own introduces what today our contemporary postmodernists call the “spectacle of signifiers” and what Adams called the “language of signs”, where much of life is ceremony and ritual, simulated rather than real, and what is seen is more important than what can be known and what is written more important than what can be proven. Society is theater, politics performance and spin, and aristocracy is wherever the limelight lands. Society, not government, is the problem, for it is the playground of the passions, of pride and pretense, where the vein demand recognition. (p.4)”
****Adams believed in a strong executive position, which is ironic in that he was a one-term president. This belief is perhaps the reason, oft-cited by his own era’s critics, that Adams is accused of being a monarchist. If anything, it was a misunderstanding of Adam’s intent. As Diggins explains, “In the historical past a wise king would mediate between the poor and the rich, the “credulous many” and the “artful few”, knowing that the latter class would take advantage of the former. Adams looked to the modern executive office to play the same role lest the superior talents in the Senate “swallow up” the less educated members of the House. (p. 59)”
****Adams predicted America’s unholy and dangerous obsession with money, materialism, and consumerism: “A free people are the most addicted to luxury of any: that equality which they enjoy, and in which they glory, inspires them with sentiments which hurry them into luxury. A citizen perceives his fellow-citizen, whom he holds his equal [to] have a better coat or hat, a better house or horse, than himself, and sees his neighbors are struck with it, talk of it, and respect him for it; he can not bear it; he must a will be upon a level with him. Such an emulation as this takes place in every neighborhood, in every family; among artisans, husbandmen, labourers, as much as between dukes and marquisses, and more---these are all nearly equal in dress, and are now distinguished by other marks. Declamations, oratory, poetry, sermons against luxury, riches, and commerce, will never have much effect: the most rigorous sumptuary laws will have little more. “ In other words, people are greedy fucking bastards.
****Adams prevented a huge war between the U.S. and France. In what became known as “The X,Y,Z Affair”, French officials sneakily tried to bribe the United States out of millions of dollars. If we didn’t pay, they said, we would be branded as France’s #1 enemy. Adams told France to blow it out their ass, we weren’t paying a “protection fee”. Jefferson, the asshole, would have paid the money, because he had a soft spot for France, believing the French Revolution was a good and wonderful off-shoot of the American Revolution. Adams felt the French Revolution was gauche and god-awful. He berated Jefferson’s francophilism and questioned his sickening tolerance of the guillotine. This whole incident, by the way, cemented a (relatively one-sided) rivalry between Adams and Jefferson. Despite the rest of the country considering Adams a hero, Jefferson resented Adams. Did I mention Jefferson was an asshole?
****Sadly, Adams will forever be associated with the worst piece of anti-immigrant legislation ever written: The Alien and Sedition Acts. Primarily set down as a reaction to the afore-mentioned U.S.-France war-that-never-was, the acts comprised four pieces of legislation. The first was the Naturalization Act which attempted to reduce the number of immigrants by extending residency requirements for new citizens from five to fourteen years. The Alien Act authorized the presidency to kick out immigrants deemed too dangerous. The Alien Enemies Act gave the president, during war-time, the power to deport aliens of enemy countries and/or to limit their rights. The Sedition Act essentially made it illegal to criticize the government. Adams regretted signing these into law almost immediately. Thankfully, three of the four were repealed by 1802. Unfortunately, the Alien Enemies Act stayed on the books, later allowing FDR to create Japanese internment camps during WWII. In case you aren’t aware of this piece of American history, our government rounded up American citizens---mostly Japanese-Americans---and put them in concentration camps. In the U.S. It seriously pains me that I even wrote those last couple sentences.
****Adams invented taxes, which made everybody hate him. Well, asshole Jefferson didn’t hate it, because it played into his campaign to oust Adams so that he could be the next president. Never mind that taxes were needed if Americans wanted those services they so desired. And the struggle continues, as Americans still hate paying for the wonderful services that taxes provide, like police, fire, public schools, libraries, roads, bridges, electricity, military defense. Damn you, Adams! Just kidding, I actually think all that stuff is pretty necessary and good, and I don’t mind that my tax money goes toward it all.
****Adams never owned slaves, and he was a vocal abolitionist long before it was cool.
****Adams was the second president of the United States.
Okay, that’s it. Seriously, that was the extent of my knowledge of the man, other than the fact that Paul Giamatti played him in a mini-series that I haven’t seen.
While Diggins’s biography is short (176 pages, all told, with about 20-plus pages of end notes and index), it is dense with information. I assume Diggins writes the same way that he lectures (he is a history professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York), which is in an avuncular, erudite, and verbose manner. He most likely has a huge following of history students who find him fascinating.
Diggins’s subject matter may not be the most fascinating president in history, but don’t tell Diggins that. In his short book, Diggins attempts to give Adams the credit he is due for helping to create this country, and, for the most part, he succeeds.
Here’s a (not so) short rundown of the pertinent information and some facts that I just found really interesting about Adams:
****He was really smart. I know that sounds like one of those “duh!” statements, because Adams was, like, one of the Founding Fathers, but he was, by many accounts, an intellectual powerhouse. Short by stature (especially stuck between behemoths George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both 6’ 2” to Adams’s 5’7”), his contemporaries nevertheless looked up to him as a great mind. He also wrote a lot. Seriously, the guy would write and publish a book during bathroom breaks. He also carried on a lifelong epistolary relationship with Jefferson to the day they died, which was, weirdly, the same day: July 4, 1826. He is also known for his many beautiful love letters that he wrote to his wife, Abigail, which leads me to the second fascinating tidbit:
****His wife was a super-awesome feminist long before feminism was a thing. Besides being an outspoken, strong woman who was clearly an equal in mind and heart with her husband, Abigail was also a devoted, loving wife. Likewise, John was smitten and equally devoted. They considered themselves best friends as well as lovers, which is, I have found, the secret to a healthy and happy marriage, and theirs was.
****Adams was often wrongly accused of being a monarchist, but a lot of that was because Jefferson was an asshole and wasn’t above smear campaigns (he basically stole Adams’s second term) that twisted Adams’s writing to make it look like he was for big government. In truth, Adams was for a strong government, because he felt that, unchecked, society would fall into a quagmire of chaos and arbitrary divisiveness that pitted groups against groups, rich against poor, strong against weak, etc. Jefferson, who essentially created the Republican party (a slightly different party than the one we know now, but not by much), believed in stuff like state’s rights and was against federal overreach of any kind. Jefferson was almost a textbook libertarian, because he believed that the people can govern themselves. A nice idea, but Adams (rightly) thought it was bullshit: “[T]o Adams, it was the arbitrariness of society that makes the rules of government necessary. Society on its own introduces what today our contemporary postmodernists call the “spectacle of signifiers” and what Adams called the “language of signs”, where much of life is ceremony and ritual, simulated rather than real, and what is seen is more important than what can be known and what is written more important than what can be proven. Society is theater, politics performance and spin, and aristocracy is wherever the limelight lands. Society, not government, is the problem, for it is the playground of the passions, of pride and pretense, where the vein demand recognition. (p.4)”
****Adams believed in a strong executive position, which is ironic in that he was a one-term president. This belief is perhaps the reason, oft-cited by his own era’s critics, that Adams is accused of being a monarchist. If anything, it was a misunderstanding of Adam’s intent. As Diggins explains, “In the historical past a wise king would mediate between the poor and the rich, the “credulous many” and the “artful few”, knowing that the latter class would take advantage of the former. Adams looked to the modern executive office to play the same role lest the superior talents in the Senate “swallow up” the less educated members of the House. (p. 59)”
****Adams predicted America’s unholy and dangerous obsession with money, materialism, and consumerism: “A free people are the most addicted to luxury of any: that equality which they enjoy, and in which they glory, inspires them with sentiments which hurry them into luxury. A citizen perceives his fellow-citizen, whom he holds his equal [to] have a better coat or hat, a better house or horse, than himself, and sees his neighbors are struck with it, talk of it, and respect him for it; he can not bear it; he must a will be upon a level with him. Such an emulation as this takes place in every neighborhood, in every family; among artisans, husbandmen, labourers, as much as between dukes and marquisses, and more---these are all nearly equal in dress, and are now distinguished by other marks. Declamations, oratory, poetry, sermons against luxury, riches, and commerce, will never have much effect: the most rigorous sumptuary laws will have little more. “ In other words, people are greedy fucking bastards.
****Adams prevented a huge war between the U.S. and France. In what became known as “The X,Y,Z Affair”, French officials sneakily tried to bribe the United States out of millions of dollars. If we didn’t pay, they said, we would be branded as France’s #1 enemy. Adams told France to blow it out their ass, we weren’t paying a “protection fee”. Jefferson, the asshole, would have paid the money, because he had a soft spot for France, believing the French Revolution was a good and wonderful off-shoot of the American Revolution. Adams felt the French Revolution was gauche and god-awful. He berated Jefferson’s francophilism and questioned his sickening tolerance of the guillotine. This whole incident, by the way, cemented a (relatively one-sided) rivalry between Adams and Jefferson. Despite the rest of the country considering Adams a hero, Jefferson resented Adams. Did I mention Jefferson was an asshole?
****Sadly, Adams will forever be associated with the worst piece of anti-immigrant legislation ever written: The Alien and Sedition Acts. Primarily set down as a reaction to the afore-mentioned U.S.-France war-that-never-was, the acts comprised four pieces of legislation. The first was the Naturalization Act which attempted to reduce the number of immigrants by extending residency requirements for new citizens from five to fourteen years. The Alien Act authorized the presidency to kick out immigrants deemed too dangerous. The Alien Enemies Act gave the president, during war-time, the power to deport aliens of enemy countries and/or to limit their rights. The Sedition Act essentially made it illegal to criticize the government. Adams regretted signing these into law almost immediately. Thankfully, three of the four were repealed by 1802. Unfortunately, the Alien Enemies Act stayed on the books, later allowing FDR to create Japanese internment camps during WWII. In case you aren’t aware of this piece of American history, our government rounded up American citizens---mostly Japanese-Americans---and put them in concentration camps. In the U.S. It seriously pains me that I even wrote those last couple sentences.
****Adams invented taxes, which made everybody hate him. Well, asshole Jefferson didn’t hate it, because it played into his campaign to oust Adams so that he could be the next president. Never mind that taxes were needed if Americans wanted those services they so desired. And the struggle continues, as Americans still hate paying for the wonderful services that taxes provide, like police, fire, public schools, libraries, roads, bridges, electricity, military defense. Damn you, Adams! Just kidding, I actually think all that stuff is pretty necessary and good, and I don’t mind that my tax money goes toward it all.
****Adams never owned slaves, and he was a vocal abolitionist long before it was cool.
February 25, 2017
I pushed myself to get through this book. I loved the first in the American President series, so this was a little disappointing. Maybe John Adams is just not as exciting as Washington! I actually used it as an example with my students on how sometimes you can abandon a book.....I DID finish but forced myself. On to Thomas Jefferson, and knowing what I know already about him, I KNOW it will be a better read!!!
March 29, 2023
An interesting and insightful biography, and an attempt to reset the history of an often-forgotten American founding father, sandwiched between the towering figures of Washington and Jefferson.
In recasting the conventional narrative, the book can overdo the tone of apologism with respect to Adams and defensiveness with respect to Jefferson - the book ends up being almost as much about Jefferson as Adams - in enlightening us on Adams’ worth the book argues the case to see Jefferson to be deeply flawed on a range of issues from the French and Haitian revolutions to the consistency and practicality of his Republican principles.
Adams is portrayed as a thoughtful philosopher, a devoted husband, a pragmatic and practical man; he may not have had the strengths or charisma to inspire like Washington or Jefferson, nor the ability to work constructively and effectively with others, but is underrated today as a thinker and deserves a reappraisal.
Whilst Adams was the only one of the first five Presidents to be defeated after one term, the book (controversially) makes the case that the Republicans’ triumph in the so-called “Revolution of 1800” resulted in them reinforcing rather than undoing Adams’ legacy. The second in the series, and recommended.
In recasting the conventional narrative, the book can overdo the tone of apologism with respect to Adams and defensiveness with respect to Jefferson - the book ends up being almost as much about Jefferson as Adams - in enlightening us on Adams’ worth the book argues the case to see Jefferson to be deeply flawed on a range of issues from the French and Haitian revolutions to the consistency and practicality of his Republican principles.
Adams is portrayed as a thoughtful philosopher, a devoted husband, a pragmatic and practical man; he may not have had the strengths or charisma to inspire like Washington or Jefferson, nor the ability to work constructively and effectively with others, but is underrated today as a thinker and deserves a reappraisal.
Whilst Adams was the only one of the first five Presidents to be defeated after one term, the book (controversially) makes the case that the Republicans’ triumph in the so-called “Revolution of 1800” resulted in them reinforcing rather than undoing Adams’ legacy. The second in the series, and recommended.
May 7, 2025
This one was a struggle. It felt like the author spent more time trying to connect the writings and philosophical approach of John Adams to dozens of others past and present and less time on the actual presidency of the subject himself.
October 1, 2009
Personally, I prefer more detailed biographies of historical figures as opposed to briefer ones. Hence, I really appreciated McCullough’s detailed work on John Adams. Nonetheless, Diggins' book is a worthwhile addition to one's library. Especially for those who want a briefer, accessible biography, the Diggins' book would be a good investment.
First, unlike most books in The American Presidents series, there is considerable emphasis on the ideas of John Adams. This is most important, given that he had a more philosophical bent than most American presidents, and his writings are, in themselves, contributions to our understanding of American political thought. This alone makes this book most useful to those who are interested in the impact of presidents. In this case, his ideas are important to be aware of.
Second, it is a decent biography in its own right, given its brevity (a hallmark of this series). The book traces the arc of Adams' life from birth to death--a rich, long, full life. We see his friendship with Thomas Jefferson disintegrate and become enmity--only to have the friendship rekindled after the termination of Jefferson's political career. Their letters back and forth are intriguing, in exposing the very different political perspectives at stake in the early 19th century.
We get a sense of the special relationship between Adams and his wife, Abigail. We see his unique, and sometimes problematic, personality at work--desperate for respect and prickly enough. His role as diplomat in Europe. His service as Vice President under George Washington (describing the office as "The most insignificant office that ever man contrived"). His role as President, after having defeated Jefferson. While he had some bad moments (e.g., the Alien and Sedition Acts), he also showed some political, courage (e.g., not caving in to the demand for war against France). He was much aggrieved in his loss in the 1800 election to his archrival Jefferson. He retired to his native Massachusetts and the book describes his life as citizen. . . .
So, in the end, a worthwhile brief biography, that makes a nice contribution in describing Adam's political thinking.
First, unlike most books in The American Presidents series, there is considerable emphasis on the ideas of John Adams. This is most important, given that he had a more philosophical bent than most American presidents, and his writings are, in themselves, contributions to our understanding of American political thought. This alone makes this book most useful to those who are interested in the impact of presidents. In this case, his ideas are important to be aware of.
Second, it is a decent biography in its own right, given its brevity (a hallmark of this series). The book traces the arc of Adams' life from birth to death--a rich, long, full life. We see his friendship with Thomas Jefferson disintegrate and become enmity--only to have the friendship rekindled after the termination of Jefferson's political career. Their letters back and forth are intriguing, in exposing the very different political perspectives at stake in the early 19th century.
We get a sense of the special relationship between Adams and his wife, Abigail. We see his unique, and sometimes problematic, personality at work--desperate for respect and prickly enough. His role as diplomat in Europe. His service as Vice President under George Washington (describing the office as "The most insignificant office that ever man contrived"). His role as President, after having defeated Jefferson. While he had some bad moments (e.g., the Alien and Sedition Acts), he also showed some political, courage (e.g., not caving in to the demand for war against France). He was much aggrieved in his loss in the 1800 election to his archrival Jefferson. He retired to his native Massachusetts and the book describes his life as citizen. . . .
So, in the end, a worthwhile brief biography, that makes a nice contribution in describing Adam's political thinking.
May 24, 2016
Reading this volume on John Adams before the volume on Thomas Jefferson made me view Jefferson more harshly. The integrity of John Adams, his marriage, and his family each make his character shine forth brilliantly. This shine dulls Jefferson especially with regard to their positions on slavery.
Something I noticed in reading this volume is if Thomas Jefferson had a wife like Abigail Adams he would have traveled a very different path. The tragedy of Jefferson in this area regarding family and marriage certainly changed him, or at least limited him.
John Adams on the other hand, having Abigail soared in areas of public speaking and leadership, confidence and boldness, because he had Abigail. For me, John Adams weakness was he failed to see a need for his cabinet, because he had Abigail. The book says he isolated and considered things alone, but my reading in multiple places inclines my thinking toward Abigail. She was his greatest and most trusted adviser.
Great book. The lesson from Adams is find your partner and soul mate, because in this person you will find he strength and counsel necessary for even the most difficult challenges.
Something I noticed in reading this volume is if Thomas Jefferson had a wife like Abigail Adams he would have traveled a very different path. The tragedy of Jefferson in this area regarding family and marriage certainly changed him, or at least limited him.
John Adams on the other hand, having Abigail soared in areas of public speaking and leadership, confidence and boldness, because he had Abigail. For me, John Adams weakness was he failed to see a need for his cabinet, because he had Abigail. The book says he isolated and considered things alone, but my reading in multiple places inclines my thinking toward Abigail. She was his greatest and most trusted adviser.
Great book. The lesson from Adams is find your partner and soul mate, because in this person you will find he strength and counsel necessary for even the most difficult challenges.
November 10, 2013
The books glosses over John Adams entire personal life with the exception of his youth.
I basically found this book to be one long essay on comparative theories between many of the founding fathers as well as other figures of the Revolutionary War era.
It might as well have been titled "Revolutionary Arguments" as it doesn't touch on much more than everyone's opinion of themselves and their peers or enemies.
I basically found this book to be one long essay on comparative theories between many of the founding fathers as well as other figures of the Revolutionary War era.
It might as well have been titled "Revolutionary Arguments" as it doesn't touch on much more than everyone's opinion of themselves and their peers or enemies.
October 21, 2018
John Adams is the second book in The American Presidents series – a biographical series chronicling the Presidents of the United States. John Patrick Diggins wrote this particular installment and edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
John Adams was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, served as the first Vice President (1789–1797), and as second President of the United States (1797–1801). He excelled as a lawyer, diplomat, and leader of American independence from Great Britain. He was a dedicated diarist and his correspondence with his wife and adviser Abigail Adams (née Smith) provides important historical information of the era.
Historically, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have always overshadowed John Adams. Traditionally depicted as volatile, impulsive, irritable, and self-pitying, John Adams seemed temperamentally unsuited for the presidency. However, this biography written by John Patrick Diggins, based on David McCullough take on John Adams would change these misconceptions.
Diggins seeks to rebut the conventional wisdom that the country's second president was a failure, a view based primary on the fact that after losing the election of 1800, Adams' party, the Federalists, disappeared altogether. However, Diggins points out that the 1800 election was, in fact, a triumph for Adams and the ideas the Federalists espoused as an opposition party came to power without America shedding a single drop of blood.
Furthermore, Diggins asserts that American political history begins with the rift between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, which played a central and critical role in the development of American democracy. John Adams lived as an aristocrat while speaking as a radical yet unfairly accused his sober-minded, eminently democratic opponent of being a Caesar in the making.
John Adams' questionable record in office helps the reader understand American history for what it really is – a study of emerging interest, driven by factional blocs struggling for dominance within a political culture of consensus. It is in this struggle, that Adams is the prototypical American liberal, who is championing of a strong executive branch, judiciary, and federal military force allowed the central state to take root and grow.
John Adams was written and researched extremely well. It showed a wonderful insight to the man who became the second President of the United States of America. This biography broke down the barriers and navigates through the misconceptions that many have about John Adams, which persists even today. It is a somewhat cursory biography, covering the major incidences of his presidency, and it may have been targeted to a younger audience.
All in all, John Adams is a wonderfully written biography of the second president and rather good continuation to what would hopefully be a wonderful series of presidential biographies, which I plan to read in the very near future.
John Adams was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, served as the first Vice President (1789–1797), and as second President of the United States (1797–1801). He excelled as a lawyer, diplomat, and leader of American independence from Great Britain. He was a dedicated diarist and his correspondence with his wife and adviser Abigail Adams (née Smith) provides important historical information of the era.
Historically, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have always overshadowed John Adams. Traditionally depicted as volatile, impulsive, irritable, and self-pitying, John Adams seemed temperamentally unsuited for the presidency. However, this biography written by John Patrick Diggins, based on David McCullough take on John Adams would change these misconceptions.
Diggins seeks to rebut the conventional wisdom that the country's second president was a failure, a view based primary on the fact that after losing the election of 1800, Adams' party, the Federalists, disappeared altogether. However, Diggins points out that the 1800 election was, in fact, a triumph for Adams and the ideas the Federalists espoused as an opposition party came to power without America shedding a single drop of blood.
Furthermore, Diggins asserts that American political history begins with the rift between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, which played a central and critical role in the development of American democracy. John Adams lived as an aristocrat while speaking as a radical yet unfairly accused his sober-minded, eminently democratic opponent of being a Caesar in the making.
John Adams' questionable record in office helps the reader understand American history for what it really is – a study of emerging interest, driven by factional blocs struggling for dominance within a political culture of consensus. It is in this struggle, that Adams is the prototypical American liberal, who is championing of a strong executive branch, judiciary, and federal military force allowed the central state to take root and grow.
John Adams was written and researched extremely well. It showed a wonderful insight to the man who became the second President of the United States of America. This biography broke down the barriers and navigates through the misconceptions that many have about John Adams, which persists even today. It is a somewhat cursory biography, covering the major incidences of his presidency, and it may have been targeted to a younger audience.
All in all, John Adams is a wonderfully written biography of the second president and rather good continuation to what would hopefully be a wonderful series of presidential biographies, which I plan to read in the very near future.
July 15, 2019
Library Biography #42
When I came across this series as part of my "Read all the Biographies" mission, I was excited and felt that it would truly give me a glimpse into no just the presidency, but the person behind the president. This is my second read - first I readJohn Quincy Adams and did not like it all. These short accounts are not as helpful as hoped.
Like the JQA book, which the author spent a lot of time discussing Andrew Jackson (his rival), Diggins spends a lot of time talking about Jefferson. Instead of getting a deeper look into who Adams was and his thoughts, this book provided more of the turmoil of his presidency.
I did find some noteworthy sections that I flagged:
"The historian Henry Adams, the great-grandson of John Adams, once quipped that the evolution of the presidency from George Washington to Ulysses Grant disproves Darwin's theory of the progress of the human species."
On Adams, "He delighted in social conversation and hated politics, and he believed in the efficacy of political institutions but no the necessity of political parties." Oh, how I wish Adams could criticize what we've become.
"...Henry Adams would have us remember: Not the president's idea of virtue but people's idea of interests decides whether Americans wish to live for government, against government or off government." My man!
"Adam's experience in the classroom led him to believe that young minds are more likely to be motivated positively than negatively, by expectations of praise instead of fear of punishment."
"But I fear that in every Assembly members will obtain an influence by noise, not sense; by hearts, not large souls." - JA
"But to Adams the self could not command itself since it belonged to, and was shaped by, society, and what would save society were properly constructed political institutions."
"Adams was trying to make us aware in the eighteenth century what contemporary poststructuralists teach us today: the presence of democracy by no means resolves the presence of power."
"The Naturalization Act attempted to curtail the flow of aliens admitted to the country by extending the residency requirement for citizenship from five to fourteen years." Aye.. a problem that surely plagues us today!
"The phenomenon of a real social revolution, we should keep in mind, takes place in an environment of oppression where there is no possible means of change and liberation other than resorting to force and violence."
When I came across this series as part of my "Read all the Biographies" mission, I was excited and felt that it would truly give me a glimpse into no just the presidency, but the person behind the president. This is my second read - first I readJohn Quincy Adams and did not like it all. These short accounts are not as helpful as hoped.
Like the JQA book, which the author spent a lot of time discussing Andrew Jackson (his rival), Diggins spends a lot of time talking about Jefferson. Instead of getting a deeper look into who Adams was and his thoughts, this book provided more of the turmoil of his presidency.
I did find some noteworthy sections that I flagged:
"The historian Henry Adams, the great-grandson of John Adams, once quipped that the evolution of the presidency from George Washington to Ulysses Grant disproves Darwin's theory of the progress of the human species."
On Adams, "He delighted in social conversation and hated politics, and he believed in the efficacy of political institutions but no the necessity of political parties." Oh, how I wish Adams could criticize what we've become.
"...Henry Adams would have us remember: Not the president's idea of virtue but people's idea of interests decides whether Americans wish to live for government, against government or off government." My man!
"Adam's experience in the classroom led him to believe that young minds are more likely to be motivated positively than negatively, by expectations of praise instead of fear of punishment."
"But I fear that in every Assembly members will obtain an influence by noise, not sense; by hearts, not large souls." - JA
"But to Adams the self could not command itself since it belonged to, and was shaped by, society, and what would save society were properly constructed political institutions."
"Adams was trying to make us aware in the eighteenth century what contemporary poststructuralists teach us today: the presence of democracy by no means resolves the presence of power."
"The Naturalization Act attempted to curtail the flow of aliens admitted to the country by extending the residency requirement for citizenship from five to fourteen years." Aye.. a problem that surely plagues us today!
"The phenomenon of a real social revolution, we should keep in mind, takes place in an environment of oppression where there is no possible means of change and liberation other than resorting to force and violence."
June 4, 2025
I would not rank John Patrick Diggins’ “John Adams” as good as the legendary book by David McCullough, but for a more concise version of Adams (with the emphasis on politics) this volume is quite serviceable. Some highlights:
- My least favorite part of the book was in Chapter 3. Adams’ ideas are overly-dissected. It gets confusing and could have been summarized. For example, Diggins writes: “Knowledge becomes genuine knowledge only when arrived at rationally and accepted under conditions free of coercion. Knowledge is, by definition then, the opposite of power (65).” Huh?
- A theme throughout the book is that John Adams is great and Thomas Jefferson is vastly overrated. Diggins seems to want to trade Jefferson’s head on Mt. Rushmore with Adams’. I agree that Adams was more realistic about the role of government than Jefferson, who wanted very little of it. “President Adams viewed the state as an instrument of justice…ironically the egalitarian ideals Jefferson espoused would be realized in the very institutions he opposed (9).”
- The parts about French relations are great. The XYZ Affair, the Quasi War, etc. were all very serious in the day and Adams was able to avoid a full-blown conflict which the US was ill-prepared to fight. He should get more credit for this.
- Diggins separates the more conservative “arch-Federalists” (i.e. Hamilton) with Adams as a “Federalist.” Adams was not a politician and lived by a strict moral code. Unfortunately, it made it tough for him (i.e. lost the re-election in 1800).
- Diggins attacks Jefferson throughout. For example, with the resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky, Jefferson was a “closet secessionist” favoring states’ rights. He also treats Haiti (post-successful slave revolt) harshly, unlike Adams.
- Diggins compares Adams’ opinion on slavery with Lincoln: both men hated it but were more concerned with holding the fragile union together. In contrast, with Jefferson (yet another barb): “Like Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Bonaparte saw no contradiction in making the world secure for liberty and making it safe for slavery.”
- I was a bit disappointed about the lack of ink devoted to Adams and Jefferson’s relationship at the end of their lives. Their letters epic and perhaps this section could have been expanded upon. Diggins puts in three pages about this.
All in all, another good one from the American Presidents series!
- My least favorite part of the book was in Chapter 3. Adams’ ideas are overly-dissected. It gets confusing and could have been summarized. For example, Diggins writes: “Knowledge becomes genuine knowledge only when arrived at rationally and accepted under conditions free of coercion. Knowledge is, by definition then, the opposite of power (65).” Huh?
- A theme throughout the book is that John Adams is great and Thomas Jefferson is vastly overrated. Diggins seems to want to trade Jefferson’s head on Mt. Rushmore with Adams’. I agree that Adams was more realistic about the role of government than Jefferson, who wanted very little of it. “President Adams viewed the state as an instrument of justice…ironically the egalitarian ideals Jefferson espoused would be realized in the very institutions he opposed (9).”
- The parts about French relations are great. The XYZ Affair, the Quasi War, etc. were all very serious in the day and Adams was able to avoid a full-blown conflict which the US was ill-prepared to fight. He should get more credit for this.
- Diggins separates the more conservative “arch-Federalists” (i.e. Hamilton) with Adams as a “Federalist.” Adams was not a politician and lived by a strict moral code. Unfortunately, it made it tough for him (i.e. lost the re-election in 1800).
- Diggins attacks Jefferson throughout. For example, with the resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky, Jefferson was a “closet secessionist” favoring states’ rights. He also treats Haiti (post-successful slave revolt) harshly, unlike Adams.
- Diggins compares Adams’ opinion on slavery with Lincoln: both men hated it but were more concerned with holding the fragile union together. In contrast, with Jefferson (yet another barb): “Like Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Bonaparte saw no contradiction in making the world secure for liberty and making it safe for slavery.”
- I was a bit disappointed about the lack of ink devoted to Adams and Jefferson’s relationship at the end of their lives. Their letters epic and perhaps this section could have been expanded upon. Diggins puts in three pages about this.
All in all, another good one from the American Presidents series!
April 1, 2018
A friend of mine loaned me DVD of the HBO miniseries "John Adams," based on David McCullough's well received biography of Adams. In order to properly watch it, I read up on this founding father/philosopher president. I brushed/cut my Adamsian teeth on The AMERICAN PRESIDENTS entry on John Adams by John Patrick Diggins. His Adams is a principled patriot who, despite turbulent seas that roiled the infant republic right after independence, helped it grow philosophical/governmental sea legs. Adams served as George Washington's vice president; was elected himself president in 1796 and served a single term. But his vice-presidency and presidency were dominated by debates/disagreements with both Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. The former favored a government more in tune with regional sensitivities. The latter espoused one that protected itself against foreign interlopers, namely France. Tensions with Jeffferson led them to become frenemies. In addition to his full and insightful illustration of John Adams, Diggins astutely gives an equally compete snapshot of the world at the turn of the 19th century. It's this photo that shows a young America inspired (not always positively) by the French Revolution. Diggins details how that seminal conflagration affected the American ideal while it was still malleable and impressionable. Specifically, Adams battled the appearance of being a closet monarchist and an advocate of American returning to Britain's yoke. Diggins successfully refutes these insinuations. The HBO John Adams' narrative follows Adams from before independence to his death in 1826. I can't think of a better initial primer on the Duke of Braintree than Diggins' pithy yet powerful portrait.
June 12, 2017
A good overview of the political philosophy of an under-appreciated president, suitable for the decently-informed layman and the well-informed historian alike. Diggins attempts neither to bludgeon the reader with his intellect nor to condescendingly simplify Adams' own occasionally convoluted reflections. While this short biography deals mainly with Adams' political career after the war, it does find time to pepper in details about his earlier life in a rather non-linear fashion which might prove a stumbling block for someone who has never read anything about Adams. Surprisingly, and rather refreshingly, very little time at all is spent dealing with Philadelphia Congresses and the Declaration of Independence - for once, a biographer feels Adams did something of interest other than persuade Jefferson to write an important document.
I deducted a star, however, because Diggins does allow his undying hatred of Thomas Jefferson bleed through on every other line - and while I wholeheartedly agree with Diggins' premise that Jefferson was a elitist idealist prone to fearmongering, the book does suffer considerably from his obsession. Diggins would have done better to play the prosecuting attorney in this case rather than the defendant - at times I wondered if I was reading a biography of John Adams or a treatise on the hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson. On a professional note, I found his method for citations more cumbersome than helpful - he would have done better to simply footnote everything rather than ask the reader to slog through the utter mess passing for a bibliography.
I deducted a star, however, because Diggins does allow his undying hatred of Thomas Jefferson bleed through on every other line - and while I wholeheartedly agree with Diggins' premise that Jefferson was a elitist idealist prone to fearmongering, the book does suffer considerably from his obsession. Diggins would have done better to play the prosecuting attorney in this case rather than the defendant - at times I wondered if I was reading a biography of John Adams or a treatise on the hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson. On a professional note, I found his method for citations more cumbersome than helpful - he would have done better to simply footnote everything rather than ask the reader to slog through the utter mess passing for a bibliography.
November 11, 2023
Exciting book, especially for its digressions into political philosophy. But Chapter 3: The Prescience of the Political Mind, left me with resource questions (about the following passage specifically): "Exasperated, Adams writes to Rousseau, 'Never before has so much wit been employed to turn us into beasts.'" This is on page 31 of my copy. Did Adams ever write a letter to Rousseau? He might have, but my cursory internet search bore me no fruit. The research guides from the Boston Public Library imply that John Adams first read Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality in 1794, so how could he have written commentary about it in a letter to Rousseau -- when Rousseau died in 1778? I thought that maybe Diggins meant to say that Adams wrote this comment "to" Rousseau in the margins of Discourse on Inequality, but I wasn't able to find it in Adams's marginalia.
More importantly, I've seen that statement attributed to Voltaire, who originated it in a letter to Rousseau. Did Adams quote Voltaire's commentary in a letter to Rousseau? In a letter to someone else? Did he quote Voltaire in his personal marginalia? If anyone knows offhand where this passage appears in Adams's writing, I'd love to know about it, just to satisfy my curiosity.
I enjoyed this book for the political philosophy, but I feel like Diggins let his biases steer the portraits he painted of Adams and Jefferson. The writing was also a bit meandering, which is why I've given the book a lower rating.
More importantly, I've seen that statement attributed to Voltaire, who originated it in a letter to Rousseau. Did Adams quote Voltaire's commentary in a letter to Rousseau? In a letter to someone else? Did he quote Voltaire in his personal marginalia? If anyone knows offhand where this passage appears in Adams's writing, I'd love to know about it, just to satisfy my curiosity.
I enjoyed this book for the political philosophy, but I feel like Diggins let his biases steer the portraits he painted of Adams and Jefferson. The writing was also a bit meandering, which is why I've given the book a lower rating.
June 6, 2017
It is easy to tell that John Patrick Diggins really likes John Adams, and he manages to make you really like John Adams too, assuming you are predisposed to be the type of balanced moderate that Diggins presents Adams as. He also really seems to think that Thomas Jefferson was quite ridiculous. Because the author's feelings are so clear in his writing, it is difficult to tell for certain how much this account is affected by bias and how much it is really an accurate painting of our second president (especially if, like me, you don't really know too much about Adams and this is the first biography about him that you have read).
All that said, what Diggins has to say about Adams is interesting and it does seem to be supported by the evidence that he provides. If the Adams he presents us with is indeed accurate, then he was tragically misunderstood both in his time and long after it. Caught between the political extremes of the ambitious Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, Adams, a philosopher President who should have been among our best, saw his potential largely squandered. Nevertheless, he did manage to leave a lasting influence on our country. This book is not as quick of a read as the first book in the series (Washington), mostly because of the large sections dedicated to Adams' ideas, but it is still fascinating. It also makes me extremely excited to read the next volume on Jefferson, to get what will hopefully be a more well-rounded picture of one of our most influential founding fathers.
All that said, what Diggins has to say about Adams is interesting and it does seem to be supported by the evidence that he provides. If the Adams he presents us with is indeed accurate, then he was tragically misunderstood both in his time and long after it. Caught between the political extremes of the ambitious Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, Adams, a philosopher President who should have been among our best, saw his potential largely squandered. Nevertheless, he did manage to leave a lasting influence on our country. This book is not as quick of a read as the first book in the series (Washington), mostly because of the large sections dedicated to Adams' ideas, but it is still fascinating. It also makes me extremely excited to read the next volume on Jefferson, to get what will hopefully be a more well-rounded picture of one of our most influential founding fathers.
February 18, 2018
The American Presidents series is really growing on me. It's scholarly and engaging, but short enough that I don't feel daunted by the sheer size of each title. It's almost like reading a long scholarly essay. I had to go back and listen to parts of this title a few times because there were just so many ideas packed into such a small space.
Diggins totally won me to the argument that John Adams is under appreciated among Presidents. I was already leaning that way after reading David McCullough's book about Adams years ago, though. He was certainly a preeminent American thinker of his time, but the Presidency was not the height of his achievements, just one of them. As one of the first serious voices to advocate for independence from Britain, other Founding Fathers owe a lot to him for laying the intellectual groundwork. I can also see why he often failed to get along with his peers, and I picture him as the creepy old neighbor who, once you finally get to know him, discover he used to be a Negro Leagues baseball star - or maybe that's the plot of The Sandlot.
Also, I'm curious to see if the Jefferson title does anything to convince me that he's anything but a hypocritical opportunist living in a fantasy land.
Diggins totally won me to the argument that John Adams is under appreciated among Presidents. I was already leaning that way after reading David McCullough's book about Adams years ago, though. He was certainly a preeminent American thinker of his time, but the Presidency was not the height of his achievements, just one of them. As one of the first serious voices to advocate for independence from Britain, other Founding Fathers owe a lot to him for laying the intellectual groundwork. I can also see why he often failed to get along with his peers, and I picture him as the creepy old neighbor who, once you finally get to know him, discover he used to be a Negro Leagues baseball star - or maybe that's the plot of The Sandlot.
Also, I'm curious to see if the Jefferson title does anything to convince me that he's anything but a hypocritical opportunist living in a fantasy land.
July 22, 2022
In 2003, the late Historian of American Intellectual Thought, John Patrick Diggins wrote a political biography of John Adams in The American Presidents Series. Similar to the other books in The American Presidents series, Diggins’s biography of John Adams is short, compelling, and well-researched. Diggens’s book has an introduction that introduces themes and the focus of Diggens’s biography. Diggens is interested in the political philosophy of John Adams. Diggins considers John Adams one of the political philosophers of the early United States (19). Diggens writes, "early American political culture involved a struggle among three competing visions. Jefferson looked to the many, Hamilton to the few, and Adams the one, a strong executive who would mediate between the democratic masses and a wealthy aristocracy” (18). Diggins summarizes the early life of John Adams but is mainly focused on his presidency. This book includes a Timeline. The book is also interested in why the Federalist party compared to the Jeffersonian political party which dominated American political life from 1800 until 1828 until the rise of the political party around Andrew Jackson. Diggens argues that the political ideology of John Adams did not die out with his defeat in the election of 1800 but morphed into a strand of the political ideology of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (181, 194). Diggens sees the political ideology of Theodore Roosevelt to be a “fulfillment” of John Adams’s political ideology (191). On a side note, Steve of the blog, My Journey through the Best Presidential Biographies has excellent reviews of several of The American Presidents series biographies.
December 7, 2024
Just finished "John Adams" from The American Presidents series, this entry written by John Patrick Diggins. Very short book, only about 180 pages long, but the material is detailed and dense so I tried to take my time reading it. History tends to ignore or write off our second president, but after finishing this short treatment on Adams I realized how unfair that attitude towards him has been. He wasn't an "epic hero" president like Washington or Lincoln, but his contributions were extremely important to the founding of this country and much of what he thought, said, and wrote is still relevant in the present day.
August 12, 2017
Obviously Biased but well done
The author was obviously biased in regards to the Adams and Jefferson conflict, as well as Adams time as president, however you can't deny how important Adams was to the revolution and the founding of America.
Adams wanting to install Plato's idea of an aristocracy is nice on paper, but so are all centralized forms of government.
Either way, good take on his life and presidency, just make sure you recognise when the author is defending as opposed to educating.
The author was obviously biased in regards to the Adams and Jefferson conflict, as well as Adams time as president, however you can't deny how important Adams was to the revolution and the founding of America.
Adams wanting to install Plato's idea of an aristocracy is nice on paper, but so are all centralized forms of government.
Either way, good take on his life and presidency, just make sure you recognise when the author is defending as opposed to educating.
November 27, 2017
This book made me wish that I began at the beginning of the series. I actually read more than half the series before getting to Washington followed by Adams. Like the book on Washington, I chose to give this book 5 stars. Also like the book on Washington, the book contains a lot of commentary about political philosophy, which may trouble those who are wanting details of Adam's presidency. I was a little surprised at the author's opinion of Jefferson: he has virtually nothing good to say about him. So now, of course, I am impatient to read the next book in the series!
June 2, 2018
A fascinating look at our second president. I listened to this on audio book and have to confess some of the philosophical angles were hard to process while listening on my daily walk or in the car which is why it took me so long to finish. Need larger chunks of time to enjoy this one methinks. But a great overview of Adams' approach to government and how that often served him poorly in politics. Thought provoking reconsideration of Adams versus Jefferson in the conclusion. I don't know enough about the debates among scholars to know which side I fall on but found it interesting.
May 19, 2022
Its not only hist’ry but theory
Though often the reading is eerie
The fight from then,
Original sin,
Is making us moderners weary.
More than most of the books in this series, and more than other short portraits of Adams, this slim volume crystalizes the political theory of the second president. He is generally under-regarded for his influence and ideas since he was not the most colorful in word or deed, but his steadfastness and cool assessment of long-term political dynamics stands out among the founders. He was not a political practitioner, but a statesman.
Though often the reading is eerie
The fight from then,
Original sin,
Is making us moderners weary.
More than most of the books in this series, and more than other short portraits of Adams, this slim volume crystalizes the political theory of the second president. He is generally under-regarded for his influence and ideas since he was not the most colorful in word or deed, but his steadfastness and cool assessment of long-term political dynamics stands out among the founders. He was not a political practitioner, but a statesman.
October 30, 2023
Chapters 2 & 3 feel like they belong in a political science textbook rather than a popular biography. The book also spends a significant amount of ink on Thomas Jefferson, which would be fine in a different context, but the concept of this series of books is to present popular biographies of each individual president. Overall, this is not the greatest biography of Adams that I have read and it is not the best in this series of presidential biographies either.
August 29, 2017
A brief biography of John Adams, which focuses less on the details of Adams' private life, and more on his philosophy of government, and his differences with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Average, and just a little bit boring if one does not particularly care about 18th-century politics.
November 20, 2017
It’s a good overview of the life of John Adams. It does seem to skip around a little bit on the dates but over all it’s a good overview—-I would read a full biography in addition to this one while a biography adds details of how Adams reacts to people this book dove into his thoughts and philosophies but the two go hand in hand nicely.
It does mention Jefferson quite a bit for a John Adams Bio.
It does mention Jefferson quite a bit for a John Adams Bio.
February 26, 2019
I’m glad I picked up these short bios. I enjoyed how much of Adams’ own words were used in this, and there was an interesting section that covered his philosophical writings in a way none of the longer bios has done. If one were to choose just a single bio to read on Adams, this really shouldn’t be it, but it’s a nice addition to other bios.
March 24, 2017
A third of the book is on political theory and is a little dense in a volume this size. Does a good job of defending Adams as a political theorist and explaining why his presidency is viewed by many as a failure. Good complement to Appleby's Jefferson, also in the series. Would recommend it.
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March 28, 2020 Even though I live one town away from Adams's home, I knew nothing about him. Might have to read the BIG biography at some point. What an interesting man! We used to have real thinkers in the White House. Sigh.
May 13, 2022
A bit of an apologia but interesting none the less. I wish we expended as much energy on leadership for positive change now as seems to be committed toward creating and arguing over new narratives and dramatics for the “founding fathers”.
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