"John Adams Talks to His Books"--NYT Sunday Book Review

[driver]

<p>John Adams had a penchant for writing elaborate notes in the margins of some of his books–many such marginalia will be available online now. He sounds as if he would have made an enthusiastic participant in CC Parents Forum; As Richard Brookhiser notes, “What he most dislikes is breezy confidence; the pieties of both left and right set him off.”

He wrote comments in fewer than 10 percent of his books, but when he got going — usually in works of history or political theory — he sometimes added thousands of words of his own to the text.</p>

<p>Often he reacts to an author’s tone. What he most dislikes is breezy confidence; the pieties of both left and right set him off. Adams read Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Discourse on Inequality” in translation. “Savages are not bad,” Rousseau wrote of the state of nature, for “the calmness of their passions and their ignorance of vice . . . prevents them from doing ill.” Adams: “Calmness of the passions of savages! ha! ha! ha!” Adams thought more highly of Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, a Tory propagandist of the early 18th century whose supple attacks on the Whig establishment made him popular in revolutionary America. But when Bolingbroke turned solemn Adams was unimpressed. “The citizens of Rome placed the images of their ancestors in the vestibules of their houses” to recall “the glorious actions of the dead,” Bolingbroke wrote in “Letters on the Study and Use of History.” “But images of fools and knaves are as easily made as those of patriots and heroes,” Adams retorted in the margin. And further: “The virtue of one generation was transfused, by the magic of example, into several” (Bolingbroke), followed by “The vice too of one generation was transfused into several” (Adams). In the historical record villains are “unmasked at length” (Bolingbroke). “Not always” (Adams). “And the honest man is justified before his story ends” (Bolingbroke). “Not always” (Adams). This is Adams as heckler at the open-mike show of political theory.

Fun stuff
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/books/review/Brookhiser.t.htm[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/books/review/Brookhiser.t.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[originaloog]

<p>I just finished reading David McCullough’s “Adams” and it was a fascinating read which I can highly recommend. While J Adams was not a particularly well liked man among his contemporaries, his talents were widely respected. But in the end he loved his farm in Braintree, Mass. and his wife Abigale above all else.</p>

[cheers]

<p>thanks for that driver. Haven’t seen any reviews for that one over here. Sounds like a book my parents would love. They are both Adams fans.</p>

[overseas]

<p>That’s what the monks used to do reading at their scriptoriums, put comments concerning the ancient texts they were reading in the margins.</p>

[backhandgrip]

<p>Yes, I think he would fit in on C.C. However, although very bright, he was not a great diplomat and did not mingle well. I do not think he would have been a great statesman today. Too much competition. He was definitely a man with his head in the clouds, or in a book.</p>

[DRJ4]

<p>Thanks for the link. I find John Adams a fascinating person and historical figure.</p>

[Faline2]

<p>yes…fun link, thanks. Just sent it to my 80 year old father…we visited the Adams home library together years ago</p>