Description: 1790-1793 marked the beginning of the American republic, a contentious period as the nation struggled to create a functioning government amid bitter factionalism. As usual, the Adams family was in the midst of it all. This volume offers insight into the family and the frank commentary on life that readers have come to expect from the Adamses.
Brief description: Margaret A. Hogan is an independent scholar and former editor of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Review Quotes: The most recently published volume of the Adams Family Correspondence, edited by Margaret Hogan among others, sustains the high scholarly standards of its predecessors. The period covered, 1790 to 1793, lands us squarely in John's vice-presidency, which he was coming to see as a political cul-de-sac (he called it "the most insignificant office that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived")...[John and Abigail's] correspondence is at its best in allowing us to see how huge policy questions about the very shape of the infant republic were filtered through highly personal concerns about health, aging, and parental frustrations. This is the messy way that history really happens, and the Adams Family Correspondence is unparalleled in providing a peek into the nexus of public and private obsessions.--Joseph J. Ellis "New York Review of Books" (12/23/2010 12:00:00 AM)