There is something about Samuel Adams that seems especially compelling today. Schiff understands how to translate even the most knotty history into quick-paced narrative. "Schiff masterfully chronicles the myriad twists and turns of Adams's life in the decades that followed, as protests against the British grew and the streets of Boston became choked with soldiers, spies, and whispers of war. An enthralling portrait of Samuel Adams, who perhaps more than another of America's founders, set the country on its course toward independence." The New York Times Book Review Schiff writes beautifully and lyrical passages provide a great deal of reading pleasure. This brisk narrative of the outsize role that Adams played in colonial Massachusetts during the 'messy, anarchic provocative' years before the Revolution places the reader at the center of the action, while dramatic events, including the Boston Massacre and Tea party, unfold anew in the light of Adams's involvement. Her previous subjects, including Véra Nabokov, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Cleopatra, have established her as one of the most talented and creative biographies at work today. "Any book from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Schiff is a reason for excitement. Perhaps even better than he'd want us to." The Wall Street Journal Samuel Adams 'did not preen for posterity,' but we now know him much better than we did. "A tour de force.With her exquisite, fast-paced prose.Stacy Schiff has produced a delightfully enthralling and insightful account of an elusive Founding Father. Unreliable rumormongering, slanted news writing, misleading symbolism, even viral meme-sharing – it was all right there at the start." The New Yorker "A wildly entertaining exploration of the roots of American political theatre. Through stylish prose and a close reading of Adams's career as a canny propagandist, Schiff suggests that he may have done more than any other founder to prime colonists for armed rebellion and deserves to be better known." New York Times "This enthralling biography is a persuasive exercise in rehabilitation. This is a time for Americans to meditate on the fate of their republic and no better place to start than here, at the beginning, with this book." Ron Chernow A glorious book that is as entertaining as it is vitally important.
For too long, Adams, hiding behind his many masks and stratagems, has evaded historians, but Schiff draws him from the shadows into the spotlight he so richly deserves. "With incomparable wit, grace, and insight, Stacy Schiff narrates the birth of the American Revolution in Boston and the artful, elusive magician who made it all happen: Samuel Adams.
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