Making Love and Revolution: Abigail and John Adams

5/19/2011

Today, at the end of a wonderful road trip from Marshall to Tucson and back, Jim and I finished reading aloud First Family: Abigail and John Adams by Joseph J. Ellis. We both give it five stars.

Part biography, part political history, and part love story, this book's a refreshing read. It brings to life the founders of our nation with all their hopes, dreams, warts, vanities, and full humanity. Over the years, Abigail and John exchanged over 1,200 letters, and Ellis selects their own words to weave a strong narrative.

If you want to learn more about the American Revolution, the republic's dicey early years, and America's preeminent first couple, this book will take you on a great ride.

3 Comments

Dana Yost

5/23/2011 02:24:16 pm

Ellis is a prolific, and talented, chronicler of the Revolutionary period. He won a Pulitzer for "Founding Brothers," and also wrote a book about Washington's years as president and how Washington shaped the office in ways that are still in effect today. That book is titled, "His Excellency, George Washington."

Ellis also was involved in a scandal in the early 2000s, when it was revealed he'd liked about his military service -- telling classes at Mount Holyoke where he taught that he'd served in Vietnam, when he was just a ROTC guy in the states, and some other things. His reputation took a hard hit -- why would a Pulitzer winner feel the need to inflate his own past -- but he seemed to make a big step toward rehabbing himself with the Washington book, and now the book on the Adamses.

Here's a link to a story about Ellis' background: http://www.hnn.us/articles/8656.html

Marianne Zarzana link

5/23/2011 02:42:02 pm

Dana, thanks for your post. I'd like to read more books by Ellis. I'm finding the Revolutionary period to be fascinating to me right now.

I had not heard about the scandal in which Ellis lied about serving in Vietnam. Thanks for the story link.

Dana Yost

5/24/2011 06:54:18 am

You're welcome Marianne. I think you're right in that the Revolutionary War period is rich in history and story — but almost underrepresented in today's history-book world compared to the vast abundance of Civil War and World War II books. David McCullough, like Ellis, has done an effective job of bringing the era to life, as have a couple of recent biographies of Andrew Jackson (who served in the war as a teen-ager, before going on decades later to become president). But a certain amount of what we think we know of our Founders and that period comes either from lore or early bios that tended to glorify their subjects (Washington, for instance, didn't chop down a cherry tree -- that was included in one of the first biographies on him, by a friend).

Hugh Curtler, by the way, is the great-great-great-grandson of Dr. Hugh Mercer, a brigadier general who served with Washington in the first couple years of the war before being killed in the Battle of Princeton!

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Making Love and Revolution: Abigail and John Adams

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Making Love and Revolution: Abigail and John Adams

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Archives

BlogrollArts BeatA Year of Being HereBearded VeganBecky's BlogBetter World BooksBirth Breasts and BeyondCarrie EtterChristine Stewart-NunezDana YostHeroic Yes! ProductionsJames A. ZarzanaLanding on Cloudy WaterNicole HelgetNo Ideas But in ThingsStory GuruThe Marsco SagaWrite Right

Categories

Blogroll
Arts Beat
A Year of Being Here
Bearded Vegan
Becky's Blog
Better World Books
Birth Breasts and Beyond
Carrie Etter
Christine Stewart-Nunez
Dana Yost
Heroic Yes! Productions
James A. Zarzana
Landing on Cloudy Water
Nicole Helget
No Ideas But in Things
Story Guru
The Marsco Saga
Write Right