What many Americans have not been taught in our pitiful public school systems but that needs to be known was how precarious and how intensely debated the issue of American independence was to the colonies.
America was as hotly divided then as it is now - it has always been so. The war was not popular. Slavery was a divisive issue that threatened to rip the colonies apart before the declaration was even signed - the issues was only postphoned until 1860. (On this issue of slavery and in defense of my country I must say that America has always in the long run come out on the proper side of an issue). To sever ties and stand up to the world's then econonomic and military superpower and set out on their own and form a new nation without an aristocracy or a monarch was considered folly and impossible. This is why we find the founding fathers calling on Providence as much as they did because it was only by the hand of God Himself that they could have won and they knew it!
Beyond the historical events we get to learn of the inside man of John Adams - perhaps the most influential of the founding fathers. He wasn't liked and wasn't popular and often had to persuade others to his side to speak in his behalf or carry his resolutions. He was even known as "the Great Agitator" for his habit of speaking his mind (he was by no means politically correct) but he was a driving force for the move to independence and the holding together of the nation after its birth through the perilous times of being a new nation without an established government.
While Thomas Jefferson secured the Louisiana Purchase, it was John Adams who prepared the way for it. As the second president he kept the infant nation from going to war with France over the piracy of American vessels on the high seas by the French, so that when Napoleon decided to sell the purchase to the U.S. America was still on good terms with France despite the opposition of Congress which wanted to go to war. Napoleon was able to sweep the conflicts on the seas under the rug as just a simple "misunderstanding" due to Adams' careful negotiations which made him very unpopular at home.
This is an amazing book, an easy but enlightening and captivating read and one of the best books I've ever enjoyed.
