From Library Journal
Weeks (American history, San Diego State Univ.) paints a detailed and ultimately unflattering portrait of John Quincy Adams in his role as U.S. secretary of state (1817-25). While touching on Adams's life and personality, the book focuses on his successful negotiations with Spain to acquire Florida and a U.S. claim to the Pacific. His able diplomacy made possible Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine, but Adams came to regret the machinations he used to get a better deal. The ironies of the affair haunted him, and he decided later that he had paid too high a price to satisfy the ambition he denied having. Like much good history, this book uses the story of a single event to reveal a great deal about the era in which it took place--and something about our own times as well. For all large history collections.
- Gary Williams, Southeastern Ohio Regional Lib., Caldwell
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Gary Williams, Southeastern Ohio Regional Lib., Caldwell
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"An excellent acquisition in a period of American diplomatic history that has had too little recent scholarly attention." -- Choice
"An intelligently argued and tightly written study that ably explores both Spanish-American relations and the complex and contradictory mind of John Quincy Adams." -- Journal of the Early Republic
"Uses the story of a single event to reveal a great deal about the era in which it took place -- and something about our own times as well." -- Library Journal
"An impressive synthesis of interpretations, personal information about Adams, his wife, and his family, and the details of the negotiations through which Florida was acquired and a borderline to the Pacific for the US and Spain was drawn." -- Choice
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
