Free Ebook The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin
How an idea can be got? By staring at the celebrities? By checking out the sea as well as looking at the sea weaves? Or by reviewing a publication The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin Everyone will have certain characteristic to get the motivation. For you that are passing away of books as well as always get the motivations from books, it is really wonderful to be right here. We will show you hundreds collections of guide The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin to read. If you like this The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin, you could also take it as yours.
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin
Free Ebook The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin
Just for you today! Discover your preferred e-book right here by downloading as well as getting the soft documents of the e-book The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin This is not your time to traditionally visit the publication stores to get an e-book. Here, varieties of book The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin as well as collections are offered to download. One of them is this The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin as your favored publication. Getting this publication The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin by on the internet in this website can be recognized now by seeing the web link page to download. It will certainly be easy. Why should be right here?
It can be one of your morning readings The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin This is a soft file book that can be got by downloading and install from on-line book. As recognized, in this innovative age, modern technology will alleviate you in doing some activities. Also it is just reviewing the presence of book soft file of The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin can be additional feature to open up. It is not only to open up and conserve in the gizmo. This time in the morning and also various other leisure time are to read guide The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin
Guide The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin will still provide you good value if you do it well. Finishing guide The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin to check out will certainly not come to be the only goal. The goal is by getting the good value from guide until completion of the book. This is why; you have to find out even more while reading this The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin This is not only just how fast you check out a publication and not only has the amount of you completed the books; it has to do with what you have actually obtained from guides.
Taking into consideration the book The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin to read is also required. You could pick the book based on the preferred styles that you like. It will involve you to like reviewing various other books The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin It can be also about the necessity that binds you to check out the book. As this The Remarkable Education Of John Quincy Adams, By Phyllis Lee Levin, you can discover it as your reading book, also your favourite reading publication. So, find your preferred publication here and also get the link to download guide soft documents.
A patriot by birth, John Quincy Adams's destiny was foreordained. He was not only "The Greatest Traveler of His Age," but his country's most gifted linguist and most experienced diplomat. John Quincy's world encompassed the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the early and late Napoleonic Age. As his diplomat father's adolescent clerk and secretary, he met everyone who was anyone in Europe, including America's own luminaries and founding fathers, Franklin and Jefferson. All this made coming back to America a great challenge. But though he was determined to make his own career he was soon embarked, at Washington's appointment, on his phenomenal work abroad, as well as on a deeply troubled though loving and enduring marriage. But through all the emotional turmoil, he dedicated his life to serving his country. At 50, he returned to America to serve as Secretary of State to President Monroe. He was inaugurated President in 1824, after which he served as a stirring defender of the slaves of the Amistad rebellion and as a member of the House of Representatives from 1831 until his death in 1848. In The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, Phyllis Lee Levin provides the deeply researched and beautifully written definitive biography of one of the most fascinating and towering early Americans.
- Sales Rank: #861957 in Books
- Published on: 2015-01-06
- Released on: 2015-01-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.52" h x 1.69" w x 6.45" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 544 pages
Review
“In the splendid The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams by Phyllis Lee Levin, you can picture [John Quincy Adams] the portly minister and the tall royal squinting into the winter sun reflecting off the Neva River…Levin's biography restores the countless details that humanize the sixth president.” ―Bloomberg
“Heartfelt and distinguished...a study of the first half of John Quincy's life and times that's as concerned with the inner man as with his increasingly remarkable public achievements.” ―The Washington Post
“…A richly detailed biography of sixth U.S. president John Quincy Adams…Levin crafts an intimate portrait of a bookish, devoted young patriot who struggled to balance filial duties to doting parents, a troubled marriage to a wife whose own writings reveal her inner turmoil, and an ambitious career.” ―Library Journal
“Levin makes the case that Adams was a man of extraordinary natural gifts, enhanced by diligent study, European travel, and contact with the greatest minds of his era, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin…Leading readers through JQA's early life almost day by day, The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams offers detail and intimacy.” ―The Boston Globe
“…Levin offers wonderful insights into [John Quincy Adams's] career and character… an excellent examination of a portion of the life and public career of a true icon in U.S. diplomatic history.” ―Booklist
“An intimate, richly detailed portrait of a powerful political figure.” ―Kirkus
“Phyllis Lee Levin's The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams is a brilliant look at a major American figure of continuing interest. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, Ms. Levin's important new book makes exceptional use of Adams' unexpurgated diaries to underscore the humanity of this misunderstood figure, 'Old Man Eloquent,' and adds necessary nuance to his undeservedly harsh reputation.” ―Paul LeClerc, President Emeritus, New York Public Library
“John Quincy Adams, long overshadowed by his celebrated father, comes fully into his own in this luminous account of his extraordinary education--as a boy in Revolutionary Massachusetts and the courts of Europe, a youth at Harvard College, a brilliant young diplomat, and a failure in his first outings as a politician. A shrewd observer of American political history and a perceptive student of human nature, Phyllis Lee Levin has taken the measure of the private as well as the public life of her subject, and the result is the warmest, most elegant, most knowing portrait of John Quincy Adams we have ever had.” ―Patricia O'Toole, author of The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends and When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt
“Balanced, compelling, and wise. Levin brings Louisa Catherine Adams, Adams's troubled wife, into the center of the picture, where she belongs, and the author is shrewd about family dynamics.” ―Publisher's Weekly
About the Author
Phyllis Lee Levin is the author of several books including Abigail Adams and Edith and Woodrow . She has been a reporter, editor, and columnist for The New York Times and lives in Manhattan.
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Insight into John Quincy Adams' Private Character, but the Writing is Problematic.
By mirasreviews
"The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams" is something of a misnomer. John Quincy Adams, accomplished diplomat and sixth president of the United States, did certainly have a remarkable education. But Phyllis Lee Levin follows his life far beyond its formative years, until 1814, when Adams was recalled, at age 47, from his post as US Ambassador to Russia shortly before becoming US Minister to the Court of St. James in Great Britain. If this were the first volume of a lengthy biography, I could understand the abrupt and illogical termination in 1814. But, as it is purportedly a biography of John Quincy Adams' education, his graduation from Harvard, the conclusion of his law studies, or even his first diplomatic posting to The Hague in 1793 at age 27 might have been a more sensible point at which to wrap it up.
"The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams" sets out to enhance our appreciation of the politician by showing us the man. Adams was a avid diarist, resulting in 51 volumes over the course of his life. His son Charles Francis edited them down to 12 volumes before publishing the abridged "Memoirs" in the 1870s. References to Adams' personal life were omitted. The Massachusetts Historical Society has made the entire contents of the diary available online, but it is daunting to plough through. The Society's publication of John Quincy Adams' correspondence, entitled "Writings", is also very much abridged, stripped of insight into his private life. His wife Louisa Catherine was not entirely well when she wrote her moaning memoir (1840), which includes "serious distortions of fact." So it has been difficult for writers and readers to grasp this man's character.
It is Phyllis Lee Levin's goal to bring that character forth on these pages. In this she succeeds. She incorporates information from John Quincy Adams' diaries, begun in 1779 at age 12 while he was accompanying his father John Adams on European assignments, including the negotiation of a peace treaty with Great Britain, as well as from John Quincy Adams' correspondence with his father, mother, sister Nabby, brothers, less frequently friends and cousins, and later his wife Louisa. Through his writings, we come to understand Adams' expectations, personality, values, and evolving world view, especially in his youth, as he left the United States and his mother at age 10 to accompany his father abroad and then served as secretary to the United States' minister to Russia, Francis Dana, at age 14. Despite bouts of depression, John Quincy had a lot to write about.
The Adams' were interesting, articulate writers, so one can hardly go wrong with a book that revolves around their lives in their own words. The author, however, quotes excessively from the primary sources, not only when the quote is uniquely interesting, but also when it could easily have been paraphrased or left out. Her prose sometimes lapses into archaic vocabulary and sentence structure that befits her subject but had me doing double-takes whenever I discovered that her words were not, in fact, part of the quote. Accounts of John Quincy's relatives occasionally become tangents; Louisa's account of her history, from her memoirs, reads like a book report. These problems, and scant analysis, plague the book's first half more than its second, but it needed a couple more drafts and guidance from a good editor to stanch the bloat of quotations and odd phrasing.
Viewed as a condensation of John Quincy Adams' writings from this period, bolstered by similar condensation of his correspondents, "The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams" is worthwhile. As a biography, it needed to be more concise, more analytical, and more in the author's own voice. I would wonder if this were Phyllis Lee Levin's first book did I not know that she has written two others, including "Abigail Adams: A Biography" (1987). To reiterate, Levin's purpose is to introduce readers to the man John Quincy Adams rather than the politician, so there is no exposition of his political ideals or of Federalism. Adams' political views and decisions are discussed as they relate to his values and impact his life, not in detail. "The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams" was not intended to be comprehensive or definitive.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Well written bio of a fascinating Founding Son
By Jaylia
He’s not exactly an American Founding Father--John Quincy Adams is actually the son of a Founding Father so he’s more like a Founding Son--but he’s become one of my favorite Revolutionary era personalities and I so enjoyed spending time with him in the pages of this book that I was a little heartbroken when I came to its end. Being the oldest son of John and Abigail Adams, John Quincy was raised to embrace the Puritan work ethic and absorb a strict moral compass that dictated self-improvement, good works, and public service, but unlike his parents he spent many of his formative years living, traveling, working, and studying in Europe so there’s a Continental enhancement to John Quincy’s personal outlook, political understandings, cultural appreciations, and love life. His wife Louisa was the only European born First Lady.
John Quincy’s European adventures are thoroughly covered in this book which focuses on the first half of his life. His extended trips abroad were during that turbulent but highly interesting time surrounding the French revolution, stretching from Louis XVI through Napoleon and beyond, and John Quincy got to meet and sometimes know well many of the era’s leading figures. As a young teenager John Quincy acted as secretary and translator for his father and other American government officials in countries that included France, England, Russia, and what became Germany, and later as a young man he himself had several diplomatic postings around Europe.
Well researched and written with clear-eyed sympathy and appreciation, The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams brings readers into the heart and mind of John Quincy before he became President. While John Quincy was born and bred an American patriot and eventually attended Harvard like his father, having the chance to enjoy and compare the arts, cultures, cities, governments, and landscapes of Europe gave him a broad political education that could not be duplicated in any classroom. Even just as a history of its time this book is fascinating, and I especially enjoyed the personal glimpses of rulers John Quincy became close to, like Alexander I of Russia and young King William III of Prussia and his family.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing. Review opinions are mine.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
The Education of the First Progressive American
By Mark J. Fowler
What I knew previously of JQA was from the movie "Amistad" and David McCullough's celebrated biography of John Adams. The father and mother, Abigail, of John Quincy Adams prepared him for greatness. Essentially home-schooled by his brilliant parents and standing alongside the likes of Benjamin Franklin and other Founding Fathers, he had only three years of formal education prior to his entrance at Harvard. H.W. Brands' biography of Franklin called that great man "The First American." In The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams Phyllis Lee Levin has detailed the formation of America's first great progressive mind. Young JQA watched his father defend the British soldiers of the Boston Massacre and learned to rule his emotions with intellect - not unguided passion. By the end of his career - after his Presidency and while a member of Congress - Adams had rarified his views to become one of the chief voices advocating against slavery. Decades before the Civil War he defended the slaves of the ship Amistad who had taken matters into their own hands after being taken slave after the U.S. had outlawed international slave trade.
Levin combed through volumes of first-hand accounts and condensed the mountains of material into this 544 page-turning biography. Her narrative smoothly transitions between the words of Adams and those around him and her own conclusions. I feel I know the man, and I can think of no higher praise for a biography.
See all 37 customer reviews...
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin PDF
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin EPub
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin Doc
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin iBooks
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin rtf
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin Mobipocket
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin Kindle
~ Free Ebook The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin Doc
~ Free Ebook The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin Doc
~ Free Ebook The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin Doc
~ Free Ebook The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, by Phyllis Lee Levin Doc
