Americas First Dynasty : The Adamses, 1735--1918

In his book on the four generations of Adams, however, Brookhiser overreaches. Had he kept his focus on the men, this would have been a fine if undistinguished book. But Brookhiser appears to be trying to say something about families, American dynasties, and the difficulties of sustaining greatness. What he wanted to say, I could never quite figure out. The wonderful aphoristic quality of Brookhisers prose -- that makes him so good when writing some sharp and brief observation -- fails him when he must sustain an argument.

An example of this is when Brookhiser writes in his introduction of the contradiction of an egalitarian society having so many political family dynasties, from the Adamses to Bushes. In noting this, he writes "[An American political dynasty] is the tribute democracy pays to aristocracy." This sounds very nice, but its meaningless. Most of Brookhisers comments on the significance of American political dynasties and how the Adamses were able to sustain their greatness fall along this line.

Thankfully, most of this book is on the Adamses, and it is when writing on them that Brookhiser shines. Still, the bad ideas -- even though they dont make up a substantial part of the book -- hang over it. Brookhiser is always interesting when writing about a person, but is not at his best when trying to come up with a conceptual framework to make sense of it all.

From Brookhisers race through four members of the Adams family I learned only two things for sure.
1. The Adamss irritate him.
2. The old adage that "the things you criticize most in others are usually your own worst fault" appears to be true.

The authors rancor calls and raises the rancor he attributes to his subjects. Reading it was an unpleasant experience with little to no redeeming informational or ideational value for anyone but the authors therapist.

It appears to me that the author makes the tacit assumption that the reader has a fairly good knowledge of American history, so he casually introduces lesser know subjects, such as the "Know Nothing Party " (Native American Party) and the anti-Masonic efforts in upstate New York. This, of course, leads you to things that you want to examine further, but, on the other hand, inhibits the free-flow of the book.

I think that the author is stretching to consider Charles Francis or even Henry Adams as "greats" who were continuing the Adams "dynasty". I did, however, enjoy Brookhisers "book review" approach to "The Education of Henry Adams" and Henrys book on Mont St. Michel. Perhaps the next book by Brookhiser would be the comparison of the contributions of the Adamses, the Harrisons, the Roosevelts and the Bushes: all presidents who related by blood.

I listened to the seven tapes as I commuted around Boston; excellent reading by Dan Cashman. It is appropriate to note the name of the town of Haverhill is pronounced as HAV AAAA rill by the natives.. The reader sounded it out and said Have Er Hill, which is logical but not the way it is said in Massachusetts. Further, the hometown of the Adamses , Quincy, is said as "QuinZZZy".