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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
Another great biography from Schiff. It focuses primarily on the period from 1765-1775 and gives one a close up view of history and the central role Samuel Adams played in the run-up to the war. He was the chief propagandist for the colonists and irked the British to no ends such that they saw him as the instigator despite hiding behind numerous pseudonyms. His relationships with Hancock, John Adams and others are elucidated. A fascinating read. I learned a lot about important events in American history. She makes history come alive.
informative
medium-paced
My husband was reading this one as we passed through Boston on a way to another trip, and was so enamored of it that he told me I had to read it too. I'd fortunately started it by the time we made it to Boston, so I was able to appreciate some of the historically relevant sites more than I otherwise might.
Adams is one of those founding fathers nobody really thinks of, except in reference to the beer. But it turns out (at least according to Schiff), this was by his own design. He was mediocre for the majority of his life, and if he'd lived in a different time, perhaps always would have remained so--but he was born "for such a time as this." I had no idea that Samuel Adams, cousin of John, was almost the primary driving force behind the scenes. He fomenting anger against the British by his myriad of pen names under which he published essays far and wide (and I did take issue with the way in which he spun current events to suit his purposes--if it wasn't outright disinformation, it was at least cherry-picking). He was the one who made back room deals to get all the power players on board, to come together under a common purpose. He and John Hancock were for a time considered the most dangerous revolutionaries of all. But he left behind so few records of his involvement that he was almost lost to history, once the revolution was won.
Very compellingly written!
Adams is one of those founding fathers nobody really thinks of, except in reference to the beer. But it turns out (at least according to Schiff), this was by his own design. He was mediocre for the majority of his life, and if he'd lived in a different time, perhaps always would have remained so--but he was born "for such a time as this." I had no idea that Samuel Adams, cousin of John, was almost the primary driving force behind the scenes. He fomenting anger against the British by his myriad of pen names under which he published essays far and wide (and I did take issue with the way in which he spun current events to suit his purposes--if it wasn't outright disinformation, it was at least cherry-picking). He was the one who made back room deals to get all the power players on board, to come together under a common purpose. He and John Hancock were for a time considered the most dangerous revolutionaries of all. But he left behind so few records of his involvement that he was almost lost to history, once the revolution was won.
Very compellingly written!
Definitley more of a deep dive into the time of the American Revolution than I have encountered before, and it was facinating to hear about Samuel Adams, who is not always seen as a primary character in history class. This book reads more like a narrative, not dry like many history books- almost like a historical fiction novel. After reading this, I plan to read more of Stacy Schiff's books, particularly on Cleopatra and the Salem Witch Trials.
It's very rare that I start a book that I cannot finish. I was excited to read this for a online book club I am a part of, and after 7 (long) chapters I called it quits. I was expecting a focused narrative on Samuel Adams but it was mostly stories/events that lead to the Revolutionary War that happened near Samuel Adams and that he was occasionally involved in. There is also a lot of speculating how he would feel about certain things because he didn't leave a lot of writings for himself. My number one wish is that it was written chronologically. Each chapter is more subject focused and I found my self often wondering where we were in his life.
I read this for a book club and it was a slooooog. For me, it was dry and very, very long and slightly confusing but also boring. I didn't know much about Samuel Adams and now I suppose I do so there is that but I don't think I will retain a lot of what I learned because my mind drifted as I read. Not my cup of tea. Pun very much intended.
It is so rare for an historically accurate biography to engage one to read voraciously right to the end, but THIS is THAT book. Schiff writes with scathing honesty and a huge handle on humor. Once again, I made so many notes as I read (98 count!), my Kindle file is a tad overwhelmed. But first, notes pertinent for these challenging times:
"[A] moral people, Adams held--would elect moral leaders--he believed virtue the soul of democracy. To have a villainous leader imposed on you was a misfortune. To elect him yourself was a disgrace."
"Neither religion nor liberty can long subsist in the tumult of altercation, and amidst the noise and violence of faction..."
"He refused to believe that prejudice and private interest would ultimately trample knowledge and benevolence."
And how powerfully THIS rings true today: "Liberty was a commodity more often admired than enjoyed or understood. Men happily extolled it when they meant nothing by it than to save their own well being. They unfurled attributes when they intended only 'to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves.' "
The future of America was already resounding loudly in the 1670s.
On the other hand, those who stumble to find their careers, or even genuine lasting interests, in early adulthood should take heart:
"What can be said of him is this: if everyone has an age when [s]he is most himself, young adulthood was not his. It is difficult to improve on the summary of the chronicler who delivered up Adam's first years in a single storm cloud of a sentence: 'He read theology and abandoned the ministry, read law and abandoned the bar, entered business and lost a thousand pounds.'"
Elsewhere Schiff remarks that Adams was the only Harvard grad of his day never to have an actual career. As an example of her brand of humor, she wrote, "He proved the only downwardly mobile of the Founding Fathers." As such, he was absolutely impervious to being bought or bribed. (With George Santos reveling in his new, thoroughly fictitious and rising persona, where on this earth would we find anyone of Adams' ilk today??)
Schiff also notes acts of protests not previously recorded in any history books I was ever acquainted with, in school or after. Some background, here:
First, it's important to know that the American Revolution wasn't so much a revolution as it was a violent protest against a blatantly unfair TAX, in a statute called the Stamp Act. This abominable piece of British legislation required virtually every colonial transaction to be marked with a distinctive stamp of the Crown, which was, of course, sold, for varying amounts of British currency --and completely unavailable for free, no matter what the transaction entailed. This was especially awful because the colonies had no currency of their own, nor any manufacturing base. (Imagine being taxed for every necessity of life, no matter how poor you are--oh wait. You don't have to imagine it, just look at what Florida Senator Rick Scott proposes for America: far fewer taxes on wealth, no social safety nets whatsoever, and taxes even for those unable to find work or incapable of it, physically and/or mentally. AND he proposes that all federal legislation would automatically be killed every five years--requiring neverending congressional votes for programs such as Social Security and Medicare! Google it at a site not engendered by his campaign or PAC.) What we call the revolution was therefore much less a war for liberty or any profound cause than it was a war for capitalism and individual financial independence. Anyone should be able to see its continuation in the obvious manner in which the Constitution subsequently and handsomely set up only white men owning substantial real estate and wealth. But I digress, back to the protests against the Stamp Act.)
Shades of the ancient Greek play "Lysistrata," written by comic playwright Aristophanes, in which Greek women refused sex in order to end a war, Schiff writes: Protests had been passionate, erudite, and creative. A young Newport woman refused to marry until the odious legislation was repealed. Other female patriots refused to do their part to populate the colonies, which should serve British manufacturers right." After all, if women must continually be reduced by men to their reproductive capacities, why shouldn't they use them to be find political voice? Frankly, I was thrilled to read this little footnote in our national history.
When Britain was forced to repeal the Stamp Act, it first passed another, called the Declaration Act. (This is one I've never seen mentioned in school texts, although I haven't read them all.) It reiterated that Parliament's authority was supreme and absolute. "While repealing one arbitrary, oppressive, and unconstitutional act, [Parliament] had insisted on the right to do so again, a thousand times over, whenever it pleased." Adams was a master of the apparently groveling little dig with a scorpion's sting, as he asked of the Crown's Massachusetts governor in his paper, The Boston Gazette, "The king and Parliament had every right to expect that repeal would produce harmony and tranquillity. Why was the governor standing between Massachusetts and cheerful obedience?"
"Politics," wrote Henry Adams, "as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds." Adams "left a good deal of himself in smoky back rooms, but it is clear he knew precisely which back room to frequent...He knew when to when to alarm, when to soothe, flatter, intimidate. Choking on their admiration, his enemies termed this his 'black art.' "
Finally, the singular question Adams asked, over and over again, is still the most cogent one we should all be asking ourselves:
"Are we--or is someone else--in charge of our destiny?"
Look to voting rights, and what state legislatures are doing behind closed doors to limit them in endless ways because they do not at all represent the majority. Look to the Supreme Court, which has allowed endless streams of dark money into all political campaigns, when every campaign could be easily paid with a dollar earmarked on any tax form. See how they went so far beyond what the parties in Citizens United were asking (was a 49-minute diatribe against Hillary Clinton still within statutory limits of a campaign ad, despite its length?), far beyond the limits of traditional jurisprudence to rule that even the prospect of corporate earnings merited the protections of our sacrosanct First Amendment. Look how it rammed through the sheer destruction of the 50-year-old Constitutional right to abortion, despite overwhelming support for a woman's right to choose, in an opinion relying on--and clearly misquoting, even so--a judge who in 1662 (!) oversaw the execution of women as witches! Look to the lifetime appointments of these justices, who are subject to no ethics rules, impeachment, or oversight, even of the public moneys they spend. (It has just come to light today, on January 27, 2023, that the Court hired an old friend, Michael Chertoff, someone long years in the Court's pockets, to oversee the investigation into who leaked Alito's craven opinion in Dobbs.)
Look to the Senate GOP, who allowed Mitch McConnell to withhold so much as an interview with Obama's intended supreme court nominee, Merrick Garland--although Obama would still be in office another year. Then see how McConnell did the exact opposite when Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, when McConnell pushed through her appointment a bare 38 days before Trump's presidency ended.
Are we--or is someone else--in charge of our destiny?
"[A] moral people, Adams held--would elect moral leaders--he believed virtue the soul of democracy. To have a villainous leader imposed on you was a misfortune. To elect him yourself was a disgrace."
"Neither religion nor liberty can long subsist in the tumult of altercation, and amidst the noise and violence of faction..."
"He refused to believe that prejudice and private interest would ultimately trample knowledge and benevolence."
And how powerfully THIS rings true today: "Liberty was a commodity more often admired than enjoyed or understood. Men happily extolled it when they meant nothing by it than to save their own well being. They unfurled attributes when they intended only 'to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves.' "
The future of America was already resounding loudly in the 1670s.
On the other hand, those who stumble to find their careers, or even genuine lasting interests, in early adulthood should take heart:
"What can be said of him is this: if everyone has an age when [s]he is most himself, young adulthood was not his. It is difficult to improve on the summary of the chronicler who delivered up Adam's first years in a single storm cloud of a sentence: 'He read theology and abandoned the ministry, read law and abandoned the bar, entered business and lost a thousand pounds.'"
Elsewhere Schiff remarks that Adams was the only Harvard grad of his day never to have an actual career. As an example of her brand of humor, she wrote, "He proved the only downwardly mobile of the Founding Fathers." As such, he was absolutely impervious to being bought or bribed. (With George Santos reveling in his new, thoroughly fictitious and rising persona, where on this earth would we find anyone of Adams' ilk today??)
Schiff also notes acts of protests not previously recorded in any history books I was ever acquainted with, in school or after. Some background, here:
First, it's important to know that the American Revolution wasn't so much a revolution as it was a violent protest against a blatantly unfair TAX, in a statute called the Stamp Act. This abominable piece of British legislation required virtually every colonial transaction to be marked with a distinctive stamp of the Crown, which was, of course, sold, for varying amounts of British currency --and completely unavailable for free, no matter what the transaction entailed. This was especially awful because the colonies had no currency of their own, nor any manufacturing base. (Imagine being taxed for every necessity of life, no matter how poor you are--oh wait. You don't have to imagine it, just look at what Florida Senator Rick Scott proposes for America: far fewer taxes on wealth, no social safety nets whatsoever, and taxes even for those unable to find work or incapable of it, physically and/or mentally. AND he proposes that all federal legislation would automatically be killed every five years--requiring neverending congressional votes for programs such as Social Security and Medicare! Google it at a site not engendered by his campaign or PAC.) What we call the revolution was therefore much less a war for liberty or any profound cause than it was a war for capitalism and individual financial independence. Anyone should be able to see its continuation in the obvious manner in which the Constitution subsequently and handsomely set up only white men owning substantial real estate and wealth. But I digress, back to the protests against the Stamp Act.)
Shades of the ancient Greek play "Lysistrata," written by comic playwright Aristophanes, in which Greek women refused sex in order to end a war, Schiff writes: Protests had been passionate, erudite, and creative. A young Newport woman refused to marry until the odious legislation was repealed. Other female patriots refused to do their part to populate the colonies, which should serve British manufacturers right." After all, if women must continually be reduced by men to their reproductive capacities, why shouldn't they use them to be find political voice? Frankly, I was thrilled to read this little footnote in our national history.
When Britain was forced to repeal the Stamp Act, it first passed another, called the Declaration Act. (This is one I've never seen mentioned in school texts, although I haven't read them all.) It reiterated that Parliament's authority was supreme and absolute. "While repealing one arbitrary, oppressive, and unconstitutional act, [Parliament] had insisted on the right to do so again, a thousand times over, whenever it pleased." Adams was a master of the apparently groveling little dig with a scorpion's sting, as he asked of the Crown's Massachusetts governor in his paper, The Boston Gazette, "The king and Parliament had every right to expect that repeal would produce harmony and tranquillity. Why was the governor standing between Massachusetts and cheerful obedience?"
"Politics," wrote Henry Adams, "as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds." Adams "left a good deal of himself in smoky back rooms, but it is clear he knew precisely which back room to frequent...He knew when to when to alarm, when to soothe, flatter, intimidate. Choking on their admiration, his enemies termed this his 'black art.' "
Finally, the singular question Adams asked, over and over again, is still the most cogent one we should all be asking ourselves:
"Are we--or is someone else--in charge of our destiny?"
Look to voting rights, and what state legislatures are doing behind closed doors to limit them in endless ways because they do not at all represent the majority. Look to the Supreme Court, which has allowed endless streams of dark money into all political campaigns, when every campaign could be easily paid with a dollar earmarked on any tax form. See how they went so far beyond what the parties in Citizens United were asking (was a 49-minute diatribe against Hillary Clinton still within statutory limits of a campaign ad, despite its length?), far beyond the limits of traditional jurisprudence to rule that even the prospect of corporate earnings merited the protections of our sacrosanct First Amendment. Look how it rammed through the sheer destruction of the 50-year-old Constitutional right to abortion, despite overwhelming support for a woman's right to choose, in an opinion relying on--and clearly misquoting, even so--a judge who in 1662 (!) oversaw the execution of women as witches! Look to the lifetime appointments of these justices, who are subject to no ethics rules, impeachment, or oversight, even of the public moneys they spend. (It has just come to light today, on January 27, 2023, that the Court hired an old friend, Michael Chertoff, someone long years in the Court's pockets, to oversee the investigation into who leaked Alito's craven opinion in Dobbs.)
Look to the Senate GOP, who allowed Mitch McConnell to withhold so much as an interview with Obama's intended supreme court nominee, Merrick Garland--although Obama would still be in office another year. Then see how McConnell did the exact opposite when Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, when McConnell pushed through her appointment a bare 38 days before Trump's presidency ended.
Are we--or is someone else--in charge of our destiny?
DNF at 20%. I just couldn’t through it. Interesting but too bogged down in the detail. If you like detail then good for you! I may try this again if I can get it on audio. I listened to the author do a couple of really fantastic interviews, and I did want to finish.