... a lucid and compelling work that should do for Adams's reputation what Mr. McCullough's 1992 book, Truman, did for Harry S. Truman ... Writing in a fluent narrative style that combines a novelist's sense of drama with a scholar's meticulous attention to the historical record, Mr. McCullough gives the reader a palpable sense of the many perils attending the birth of the American nation and the heated, often acrimonious politics of the day ... What comes across most insistently in this absorbing book is a sense of Adams's exuberant, conflicted and thoroughly engaging personality.
Research and analysis are woven into a seamless narrative that makes it an absolute joy to read ... While acknowledging his flaws, McCullough clearly likes and admires his subject and writes of him with great warmth and affection.
... [a] masterpiece of biography ... a wonderfully stirring biography; to read it is to feel as if you are witnessing the birth of a country firsthand.
