THE REMARKABLE EDUCATION OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

The formative experiences that shaped a political mind.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) began keeping a diary when he was 11 years old, a project that resulted in tens of thousands of pages. To produce this perceptive biography, Levin (Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House, 2001, etc.) has judiciously mined that abundant material, along with Adams’ prolific correspondence and his wife’s memoirs. Although considered by contemporaries “a frigid and icy New Englander,” Adams, as the author portrays him, was a passionate man, often lonely, self-critical and exacting of others (Thomas Jefferson, for one, who seemed to Adams shifty and calculating). Besides revealing his emotions and intellectual growth, his diary offers a vivid record of the tumultuous political events that he witnessed, including the American Revolution, Louisiana Purchase and Napoleon’s doomed invasion of Russia. Adams made his first trip to Europe in 1778, as his father’s companion and secretary, and at age 14, he accompanied Ambassador Francis Dana to Russia, interpreting peace negotiations conducted in French. By the time Adams enrolled at Harvard, he was a worldly young man but had no clear direction. Following his father’s advice, he began a legal apprenticeship in the small town of Newburyport, where, isolated and anxious about his future, he plummeted into overwhelming depression—an affliction that would recur throughout his life. His parents, the estimable John and Abigail, had high hopes for their son. If he achieved anything less than professional prominence, they told him, “it will be owing to your own laziness, slovenliness, and obstinacy.” As a minister to The Hague, London, Prussia and Russia, senator from Massachusetts, secretary of state under James Monroe and professor of rhetoric at Harvard, Adams had no lack of achievement and honors. Levin focuses on his education—as a lawyer, statesman, husband and father—ending in 1815, with major roles yet before him.

An intimate, richly detailed portrait of a powerful political figure.