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A review by socraticgadfly
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Smithsonian's excerpts from the introduction caught my eye, and having read other Schiff, had to get this. It's solidly informative, while Schiff also notes that we just don't know a lot about Adams because he preserved little correspondence he received and told others to burn his to them — if it wasn't unsigned.
Schiff's bio is generally sympathetic without cutting blank checks. She notes the financial straits he was in much of his life weren't entirely his fault, but they were in part, including his indolence as a city tax collector and other things.
As for his place in the revolutionary pantheon? She notes that he and the increasingly erratic Otis were the leading lights in Boston. We don't know if Adams was set on independence before the "Massacre," but she gives enough of what is known to take that as a reasonable conjecture. And, while noting that he didn't incite the early Stamp Act mobbery, she shows repeatedly how Adams could be "economical" with the truth, including the account of the so-called "Massacre."
She also shows why, other than the "burn this letter," he fell out of the limelight despite Jefferson, among others, touting him to the skies. One is that during the Second Continental Congress, his lack of skills as a political organizer — not an organizer of movements, but a creator of organizations — left him outside the center. It's interesting that cousin John, not him, was part of the Declaration of Independence committee of five. And, tho not discussed by Schiff, it's interesting that cousin John, not him, was tapped to write Massachusetts' post-independence constitution, tho Sam was part of the three-member committee tapped to draft the constitution. It's almost as if his writing skills, which were good, simply deserted him on government organization.
His star further faded when Hancock, back on the outs with him after not being nominated to command the Continental Army, bought into the rumor that he was part of the Conway Cabal. Schiff claims he knew little, but yet, doesn't show a lot of homework on that statement.
He was also arguably a hypocrite on an issue after the war that surely damaged his standing with what would become the anti-Federalists and it's a surprise Jefferson didn't pick up on this. He thought the ringleaders of Shay's Rebellion should be hung. (Hancock, as governor, pardoned them.) It would have been nice to see more of Adams' attempt to defend himself, whether in his own letters, copies of letters others sent to him, or recorded public speeches.
Some other reviewers have commented on "lack of spark," as in Schiff not making Adams come more alive. To me, that is part of it; she gets his biography clear, but the writing style is kind of "here it is." There's also the issue in that she doesn't at engage in the reasoned conjecture that can be part of good history. For example, does SHE think that Adams was plumping for independence pre-Massacre?
And, on the "burn this" angle, that wasn't in play after the Treaty of Paris in 1783 and news of it arriving in the United States. So, why don't we have hardly any letters from this time on? Part of it, perhaps was the palsy or tremor that Adams had. But, was part of it a deliberate design to consider the mystery?
Schiff's bio is generally sympathetic without cutting blank checks. She notes the financial straits he was in much of his life weren't entirely his fault, but they were in part, including his indolence as a city tax collector and other things.
As for his place in the revolutionary pantheon? She notes that he and the increasingly erratic Otis were the leading lights in Boston. We don't know if Adams was set on independence before the "Massacre," but she gives enough of what is known to take that as a reasonable conjecture. And, while noting that he didn't incite the early Stamp Act mobbery, she shows repeatedly how Adams could be "economical" with the truth, including the account of the so-called "Massacre."
She also shows why, other than the "burn this letter," he fell out of the limelight despite Jefferson, among others, touting him to the skies. One is that during the Second Continental Congress, his lack of skills as a political organizer — not an organizer of movements, but a creator of organizations — left him outside the center. It's interesting that cousin John, not him, was part of the Declaration of Independence committee of five. And, tho not discussed by Schiff, it's interesting that cousin John, not him, was tapped to write Massachusetts' post-independence constitution, tho Sam was part of the three-member committee tapped to draft the constitution. It's almost as if his writing skills, which were good, simply deserted him on government organization.
His star further faded when Hancock, back on the outs with him after not being nominated to command the Continental Army, bought into the rumor that he was part of the Conway Cabal. Schiff claims he knew little, but yet, doesn't show a lot of homework on that statement.
He was also arguably a hypocrite on an issue after the war that surely damaged his standing with what would become the anti-Federalists and it's a surprise Jefferson didn't pick up on this. He thought the ringleaders of Shay's Rebellion should be hung. (Hancock, as governor, pardoned them.) It would have been nice to see more of Adams' attempt to defend himself, whether in his own letters, copies of letters others sent to him, or recorded public speeches.
Some other reviewers have commented on "lack of spark," as in Schiff not making Adams come more alive. To me, that is part of it; she gets his biography clear, but the writing style is kind of "here it is." There's also the issue in that she doesn't at engage in the reasoned conjecture that can be part of good history. For example, does SHE think that Adams was plumping for independence pre-Massacre?
And, on the "burn this" angle, that wasn't in play after the Treaty of Paris in 1783 and news of it arriving in the United States. So, why don't we have hardly any letters from this time on? Part of it, perhaps was the palsy or tremor that Adams had. But, was part of it a deliberate design to consider the mystery?