The Education of John Adams

This book, a free-standing companion to Bernstein's masterly 2003 biography of Thomas Jefferson, responds to the public curiosity about Adams, his life, and his work for those intrigued by popular-culture portrayals of Adams in the Broadway musical 1776 and the HBO television miniseries John Adams. Focusing on Adams's mind and his fascination with the law, Bernstein presents Adams as a constitutional thinker and learned politician in a time when ideas pervaded our politics and shaped the origins of the United States.