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Like his masterly, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman, David McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel.
Above all, John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. It is a life encompassing a huge arc -- Adams lived longer than any president. In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot -- "the colossus of independence," as Thomas Jefferson called him -- who spared nothing in his previous books, McCullough tells the story from within -- from the point of view of the two political parties, they became archrivals, even enemies, in the intense struggle for the presidency in 1800, perhaps the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived. The story ranges from the point of view of the moving love stories in American history. James's, where Adams was the first President to occupy the White House.
This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas.
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