The Revolutionary Samuel Adams

A biography of one of the most influential patriots during the Revolutionary War.

Samuel Adams: America's Revolutionary Politician offers a fresh full-life biography of the man Thomas Jefferson once described as the helmsman of the American Revolution. In his study, historian John K. Alexander uses narrative history to argue that Samuel Adams was both America's first professional politician and its first modern politician. Adams, Alexander argues, was an unwavering politician who strove to protect the people's basic rights and who emphasized the importance of virtue, liberty, a sense of duty, and education in fashioning a republican society. John Alexander's fresh reading of Adams's record, and a uniquely close look into his personal life, uncovers a masterful politician and a man consistent in his beliefs.

This full-life biography includes analysis of Adams's education, political philosophy, religious attitudes, social values, and family relationships. While his extraordinary role in achieving American independence is closely analyzed, the post-independence period, including his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, is not neglected. The core theme is that Adams was unflinchingly committed to promoting and defending republican constitutions and ideals. He wanted the revolutionary generation to bequeath a land of liberty and equality to the nation's posterity.

Examines the life of Samuel Adams, a hero of the American Revolution who is credited by some with having fired the first shot at Lexington Green, the "shot heard 'round the world."

This "glorious" revelatory biography from a Pulitzer Prize winner is about the most essential Founding Father (Ron Chernow)—the one who stood behind the change in thinking that produced the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd and eloquent man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution. A singular figure at a singular moment, Adams amplified the Boston Massacre. He helped to mastermind the Boston Tea Party. He employed every tool available to rally a town, a colony, and eventually a band of colonies behind him, creating the cause that created a country. For his efforts he became the most wanted man in America: When Paul Revere rode to Lexington in 1775, it was to warn Samuel Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason. In The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Schiff brings her masterful skills to Adams’s improbable life, illuminating his transformation from aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies. Arresting, original, and deliriously dramatic, this is a long-overdue chapter in the history of our nation. ONE OF WALL STREET JOURNAL'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF LOS ANGELES TIMES TOP 5 NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 And named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by The New Yorker, TIME, Oprah Daily, USA Today, New York Magazine, Air Mail, Boston Globe, and more! "A glorious book that is as entertaining as it is vitally important.” —Ron Chernow "A beautifully crafted, invaluable biography…Schiff ingeniously connects the past to our present and future, underscoring the lessons of Adams while reclaiming our nation’s self-evident truths at a moment when we seemed to have forgotten them." —Oprah Daily

Presents the life and accomplishments of the colonist and patriot who was involved in virtually every major event that resulted in the birth of the United States.

Discusses the life and career of Samuel Adams, a force behind many events that led to the Revolutionary War, making him known as the father of the Revolution.

“A brief, sharply focused biography [that] restores Adams to his rightful place as an indispensable provocateur of American liberty” (Kirkus Reviews). Samuel Adams is perhaps the most unheralded and overshadowed of the founding fathers, yet without him there would have been no American Revolution. A genius at devising civil protests and political maneuvers that became a trademark of American politics, Adams astutely forced Britain into coercive military measures that ultimately led to the irreversible split in the empire. Through his remarkable political career, Adams addressed all the major issues concerning America’s decision to become a nation—from the notion of taxation without representation to the Declaration of Independence. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams all acknowledged that they built our nation on Samuel Adams’ foundations. Now, in this riveting biography, his story is finally told and his crucial place in American history is fully recognized. Winner of the 2007 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award