( 2 reviews )
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( 10 of 10 found this review helpful ) Posted: Aug 1 2005
Samuel Adams comes alive in John K. Alexander's enthralling biography of the pioneer of American political warfare. Separating myth (that Adams operated by mob rule) from reality, Alexander carefully shows how the Boston patriot - steeped in the ancient classics, John Locke and an abiding Christian faith - combined reason, rhetoric, political organization and perseverence to achieve the goal he arguably founded of American independence. Alexander's book chronicles how Adams pioneered modern political agitprop by organizing the Committees of Correspondence to link Massachusetts towns, sympathizers in Europe and ultimately all the 13 colonies in a communications underground. It describes Adams' masterful political takeovers of town and colonial legislatures, hugely successful political theater, economic warfare, social stigmatization of enemy collaborators, and the creation of extralegal parallel institutions that usurped political power from the crown and empowered the common citizen. Adams is an underappreciated Founding Father: he helped pen the Declaration of Independence, served on the Constitutional convention and almost singlehandedly wrote the original language of much of the Bill of Rights. Alexander acknowledges Adams' human flaws while demonstrating how the Boston revolutionary remained true to his beliefs for half a century without seeking personal profit or aggrandizement. The book is unfortunately lacking in footnotes and it paraphrases Adams more than it quotes him, though it contains a substantial bibliographical essay. Alexander has authored an important biography of the founder of American political warfare. He is one of the few Adams scholars who gets the nuances about Samuel's political warfare genius. In reading the book, one understands Thomas Jefferson's emphatic comment that, if anyone was the helmsman of the American Revolution, "Samuel Adams was the man."
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( 12 of 12 found this review helpful ) Posted: Nov 29 2004
This biography focuses on the political life of Samuel Adams and his key role in leading Massachusetts to rebel against Britain to protect its liberties. Little is written about Adams' personal or family life and the coverage of his participation in the Continental Congresses is also slim, apparently due to a lack of sources, since Adams destroyed most of his correspondence and Congressional deliberations were secret. There are issues that I wished would have been discussed in more detail, e.g. the author has only a limited discussion of Adams' alleged role in replacing Washington as commander-in-chief (apparently a canard spread by his enemies). The author explains well the development and sources of Adams' political philosophy and how it guided his actions before, during, and after the Revolution. The prose is well-written with many short quotations from Adams. Overall, an informative and fairly interesting biography of a key and often overlooked figure of the American Revolution.
