Wall Street Journal Penetrating, detailed and very readable... [a] splendid biography. New York Times Book Review, Joseph J. Ellis [A] splendid new biography... Reliably thorough, blissfully bereft of jargon and nicely paced. Washington Free Beacon [An] excellent biography... [John Quincy Adams'] life is worth meditating on, and Traub's biography is an indispensable resource for doing so. Library Journal Adams surfaces as an ambitious intellectual with deeply held convictions striving to hold his family together through illness, tragedy, and financial woes while relentlessly promoting a strong, active federal government as the young but rapidly expanding and diversifying nation grappled with geographic sectionalism and political partisanship. Claremont Review Excellent...a book worth reading. First Things, George Weigel Had I the resources, the one new book I'd give every delegate to the national political conventions that are meeting later this month is James Traub's masterful biography, John Quincy Adams. Alan Taylor, author of The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 In lucid prose and with canny insight, James Traub illuminates the life and political career of John Quincy Adams. Driven by grim purpose and consistent values, Adams was hard to love but demanded respect as he matured into a champion of liberty for all. Traub admires Adams tinged with sadness for the absence of his type in our own times. Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American World By rights, John Quincy Adams should be one of America's most famous presidents. His life story is remarkable. The son of one of the nation's founding presidents, the only one to serve in an elected office after leaving the White House, and a man of vast intelligence and even greater political courage who died while debating in the House of Representatives. Yet he is an obscure figure in American history. James Traub has rectified this in a book worthy of its subject. Traub is a splendid storyteller and a perceptive guide to foreign policy. The result is an utterly compelling book. Kurt Andersen, author of True Believers, host of Studio 360 Certainly by modern standards, John Quincy Adams doesn't seem like presidential material: all high seriousness and rectitude, uncompromising to a fault, precisely not a guy with whom you want to sit down and have a beer. But James Traub's beautifully written, absolutely definitive biography is a surprising page-turner that made me admire this other President Adams as he finally deserves to be admired--and to wonder if the species of American civic virtue he embodied, always rare, always endangered, has not become extinct. Deborah Solomon, author of American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell In the crowded pantheon of politically glamorous Adamses, John Quincy has long been overshadowed. Here he has finally been given his due. James Traub, one of America's most incisive journalists on foreign affairs, has crafted a moving biography of an unlikely hero -- a tense, introspective man who had no gift for small talk and felt beleaguered by criticism from members of Congress as well as his own three sons. By capturing Adams' unflashy brilliance and do-the-right thing convictions, Traub convinces us that our sixth president is as worthy of our affection and gratitude as any before or after him. Booklist, Starred Review Traub thoroughly, even quite engagingly, follows Adams through the years during which he served in the diplomatic corps, building up the reputation as the new republic's best representative abroad. Publishers Weekly, Starred Review [An] essential biography of a complex man... Traub shows that without imperiling national unity, Adams's persistent, perspicacious opposition to slavery 'shattered the overweening confidence of the South' and confirmed his place in America's history. Kirkus Traub depicts a fully fleshed character, an extraordinary man driven by his birthright principles, a voluminous diarist, scholar, poet, polymath, eccentric, and iconoclast. The author also offers a masterly portrait of Adams' wife, Louisa. An impassioned biography of 'a coherent and consistent thinker who adhered to his core political convictions across his decades of public service.' Open Letters Monthly [T]his is a fine addition to the newly-swelling ranks of JQA biographies, and one of the finest political lives to appear so far in 2016. Roanoke Times Traub's attention to small, sometimes seemingly insignificant, details creates a vivid picture of Adams, his family, his colleagues and adversaries, and the society in which he lived and worked. Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln James Traub's new biography of John Quincy Adams is exceptionally strong. Adams was a complicated hero, a patrician visionary but also, as Traub puts it, a militant spirit, one of the most important diplomats in all of American history and, finally, slavery's greatest enemy in American politics. Traub does justice to both the man and his times, with a historian's sense of complexity and a writer's eye for drama and detail. Shelf Awareness for Readers John Quincy Adams is a sharp portrait of the fascinating statesman who helped bring about the consolidation of the United States from fragile upstart into emerging major power. Traub's plentiful source material -- Adams kept a journal throughout most of his life -- reveals a complex man: a Puritan patrician, a genius diplomat, a villain to many and hero to a hopeful few, including the Amistad defendants. John Quincy Adams is a magnificent work. The Arts Fuse James Traub has admirably captured the man inside the public figure, giving us a view of a typical New England grandee, puritanical at his core, molded as a traditionalist republican with no love for pure democracy, convinced that governing was intended for the class born and bred for it. CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS This week's book of the week is James Traub's biography of John Quincy Adams. By rights, John Quincy Adams should be one of America's most famous presidents. His life story is remarkable, the son of one of the nation's founding presidents, the only one to serve in an elected office after leaving the White House, and a man of vast intelligence and political courage who died while debating in the House of Representatives. Yet he's an obscure figure. James Traub has rectified this in a book worthy of its subject.
