Samuel Adams: A Life Paperback – November 3, 2009

Thanks in part to television portrayals and many history books, the common perception of Samuel Adams today is of a firebrand who organized the Boston Tea Party, openly threw insults at the British occupiers of Boston, and liked his taverns. There is truth here but this view basically makes a stereotype of the man. The great advantage of Ira Stoll’s biography is to put Sam Adams into a much larger context, parts of which may be completely unknown to most Americans today.

I learned two valuable facts from this book about Adams. First, he was much more literate that we realize. His writings, especially before and during the Revolution, were not just broadsides against the British. They were diverse and literate. He very often published under pseudonyms in newspapers and his writing has the fervor of a Hamilton or Madison, especially when it comes to the moral justification of the Revolution. While it is true that Sam Adams did not have Madison or Hamilton’s incisive minds, his writings portray a man who spent long hours with his pen and whose ideas often portray a depth of understanding that goes far beyond the tavern broadsides we might associate with him.

But probably the most important factor brought out by Stoll and which I never realized was how deeply rooted religion was in Adams’ life. This is virtually never brought up in popular depictions of him. While many of his more famous contemporaries became Deists, Adams appears to be the Revolutionary figure who had the deepest roots in the Great Awakening and who continued to accept the theology that came with it. Franklin lived through much of that also but he rejected most of it in one way or another. Not Sam Adams. His political writings and speeches are constantly comparing the Americans to the Jewish people searching for freedom or to the fight for freedom of the Puritans; his view of the Revolution was to see the new country as the fulfillment of the virtuous “city on the hill.” One is tempted today to think of this as a good front, a cover for his political ideas filled out with a lot of Biblical quotations. Many modern politicians are great at that. But, as Stoll shows time and again, religion was no political cover for Adams. In his private writings, which he never thought would be made public, he consistently refers to religious analogies for America and as inspiration for the future of the country. Making Adams a child of the Great Awakening must be tied to his intense love of liberty and his constant identification with the common people, both before, during and after the Revolution. These ideas came as a package in his personality. The same religious zeal and oneness with the common folks that led him to be the early and loud critic of the British led him to detest the centralizing government of the Federalists in the 1790’s.

Stoll also brings out many other interesting facts. In Adams’ religious zeal also lay a deep-seated anti-Catholicism. A fear of “Popery” runs through a large number of his writings and was transferred to the Church of England trying to impose itself on the colonies. Adams comes across as irrational at times, sometimes exaggerating or distorting to make a point. It helps to see this not just as a specific personality trait, but as a result of a religious calling about this country. The end, Liberty, justified the means and the means had religious/nationalistic justifications. I wish there were more about how Adams developed as a young man into the adult he became but, as Stoll mentions at the end, Adams made a point of destroying and burning the majority of his personal letters. If the book has a weakness, it is that Stoll goes out of his way to show that religion was much more important than we think not just to Adams but to many of the people he associated with. Stoll cites many speeches and sermons by other people that support Adams’ view of the religious nature of the Revolution. But it gets a bit tiring to read so many religious selections from sermons or speeches of others who lived at or near the time of Adams, especially when several of them have only an indirect bearing on Adams’ actual life. Context is important but it can be overdone.

All in all, however, this book is an important corrective about the life of Samuel Adams. Given the scarcity of material at times, Stoll does a fine job of laying out aspects of this man whose life is often forgotten or distorted today but who played a critical role in defining the history of this country.

I rank this a five because it provided a picture of Samuel Adams that was new and the more I read the more real it became.
The points made were supported by quotes from newspapers published at that time.
His religious thoughts and positions that he took became more understandable and consistent as the book progressed.
My picture of S A was admittedly naive. What convinced me was the posture he took time after time and how it never changed. His convictions were his guiding light right to the end.
It is a picture of American history that I lack and it is a picture of S A that is not clearly presented to the citizens of American. It would be good to put him into the proper perspective and place in the American Revolution story.

Great book! Thanks to the author and publisher for giving us the exceptional account of our most important, principled, courageous , political leaders in the history of the nation. The author takes the reader back to the days of early America, where people are trying to live a religiously principled life, and trying to carve a living out of the new world, and trying to sort through how government should be formed. Everyone interest in the cultural, political, and institutional founding of the greatest nation in the history of the universe should read this book.

Most books you read on the revolution make at least some reference to Samuel Adams. Books dealing with the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution even more so. This in mind I decided to read a bit more on the man.

Why should you read this book? It gives great background on Adams and the Commonwealth of Massachusettes prior to the start of the revolution, discusses a lot about S. Adams' role in bringing it about, and in doing both gives us some important background on the role religion did and did not play in both.

S. Adams stands somewhat alone as the religious voice of the founding fathers. While many had strong beliefs of their own, this man was driven by them. His life and legacy centered around religion and the role he thought it played in a just and lasting society.

The book never takes his side on the matter, in fact does a pretty good job of showing many others as much more supportive of a govenment that was
tolerant to everyone including those Adams refered to as "Papists".

If you're interested in the founding fathers do not miss this book. There may be better ones out there but this book is fairly easy to read and includes a lot of letters to, from, and about S. Adams and some reference to the role of the newspapers as well.

One of the few founding fathers with no military or law experience he was nonetheless on of the most important men of his time and this book tells why in a very inviting manner.

This book is written in a very tedious style. Most of the book goes something like this: Sam Adams did this, then he did this, then he did this, etc. There is very little story-telling in the book. One of the reviews compares this book with McCullough's "John Adams" - this is completely wrong. McCullough's "John Adams" is a great, very enjoyable book, while this book by Ira Stoll tends to be dull. Having said that, there is a lot of great information in the book and one can learn a lot about the often-overlooked Samuel Adams.

Very dry. No real sense of the man himself. I didn't connect with Sam the way I had hoped.