Samuel Adams

Ira Stoll places Samuel Adams, the "forgotten Founding Father," in historical context, delving into how his Puritan sensibilities informed his vision of independence. Paul Boehmer competently handles the task of reading extended passages of Adams's writings in the slightly foreign-sounding English of the Colonial period, although his attempts to give a British accent to British quotes detract from the overall delivery. With its overabundance of repetitive text, listening to this work is often tediously reminiscent of a college history course, but the importance of this "apostle of liberty" and his influence on our national psyche make this chapter of American history vital to understanding how the past informs our present and our view of ourselves as God's new "chosen people." N.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

September 8, 2008
Thomas Jefferson once declared, “For depth of purpose, zeal, and sagacity, no man in Congress exceeded, if any equaled, Sam Adams.” Yet the American revolutionary from Massachusetts (1722–1803, cousin of John Adams) has become the forgotten founding father, and Stoll attempts to pull Adams out of this oblivion. Rebellious Americans' passionate vision of themselves as an incarnation of the Israelites freeing themselves from Egyptian slavery was invoked by Adams, one of the most religious American revolutionaries. He called on Americans to fulfill their God-given freedom and was a radical who endured physical danger, poverty and the death at 37 of his only son. But for Stoll, a managing editor of the New York Sun
with a long career in newspapers, Adams was also the consummate newspaperman, a pundit dispersing the ideals of freedom. Occasionally apt to settle into litanies of Adams's various tasks and redundant statements on the divine right of American independence, Stoll also sporadically recounts evocative details of the period, such as the lyrics from revolutionary songs. This account might sustain a renewed interest in Adams as the founder of a distinctly American spirit.