Samuel Adams is as fierce a patriot as their was. But this biographer may love him too much and gives him credit for almost everything under the sun. Still enjoyed it. But there is a new biography coming out this year I’ll look forward to reading. ( )

Ira Stoll has written an insightful biography, Samuel Adams: A Life. Often overlooked, Adams was a founding father of our nation. He was “a pious believer who was a flaming radical; the jump-starter of our independence.” This interesting biography can be found on the library shelves under the number B/Ada.

Thomas Jefferson called Samuel Adams “truly the man of the Revolution.” Adams, filled with religious fervor, inspired others to fight on and overcome the challenges of the Revolutionary War. He was the editor of the influential Boston Gazette, planner of the Boston Tea Party, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and yet, he is largely ignored and unknown today. Understanding the leading part Adams played in building and sustaining support for the revolutionary cause gives readers new insight into the way religion motivated the founding of America. ( )

When you read a biography like this you just want to shake the subject of the book and ask them why in God's name they destroyed their letters and writings. This would have been a fantastic book if we could have understood the mind of Adams in his relationship to his wife and children which is missing from here, and his personal relationships with other revolutionaries.
BUT that doesn't negate the effect of the book that is there. The author did a masterful job of giving us the patriot that we never knew. Adams was the man that started the revolution and designed the government of this country and of his home state of Massachusetts. He was so highly thought of by his contemporaries that he was elected or appointed to nearly every committee for every important movement including the Boston Tea Party, the Constitution, the Massachusetts Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He was everywhere, representing the people he knew and we are the better for it. He pushed other people to move on the ideas he had and was so reviled by King George that he and John Hancock were the only two with a bounty on their heads. And yet he didn't quit.
I am thrilled that I read this book because he would have been unknown in my life and I would have been poorer for not having known him. ( )

This was an examination or telling of the life of Samuel Adams and why we should remember him. I have to admit I have a bias towards this revolutionary figure as I did several research projects/papers on his life and legacy. I picked this book up with wide eyes, drooling a bit and read it with great interest. I often wondered why he was mentioned as often as John Adams or other Founding Brothers/Fathers. This book does a great job of humanizing this individual....he was not perfect, he was not always tolerant of other ideas and his personal life was not all unicorns and rainbows. Perhaps I have an attachment to this figure because I have discovered that unlike his peers sitting atop pedestals and pictured on currency, he was an imperfect human and I can relate to that. ( )