John Quincy Adams was all these things - and more. He negotiated the peace that ended the war of 1812, free the African prisoners on the slave ship Amistad, served sixteen years in the House of Representatives, restored free speech in Congress, led the antislavery movement… … and … He was the sixth President of the United States. He served under Washington and with Lincoln he lived with Ben Franklin, lunched with Lafayette, Jefferson, and Wellington he waked with Russia’s czar and talked with Britain’s king he dined with Dickens, taught at Harvard, and was an American minister to six European countries. The first few words of John Quincy Adams (Da Capo) illustrate Unger’s skill: in a very few words he tells us everything we really need to know about his subject, introduces the idea of why we should care and teases us to go on: James Monroe, Lafayette, Noah Webster, John Hancock, George Washington and others all have been breathed to life for us with skill and vigor and Harlow Giles Unger’s well seasoned pen. I loved 2010’s Lion of Liberty, an action-packed portrait of Patrick “liberty or death” Henry. His last half dozen or so books have brought as many long dead presidents back to something like literary life. No one writes biography quite like Harlow Giles Unger.
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