John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger

Hardcover ISBN: 9780306821295 $27.50 / $30.50 CAN. Published by Da Capo Press

Where to Buy

Raised for greatness by his parents John and Abigail Adams, John Quincy Adams surpassed their expectations to become one of America’s greatest and most courageous leaders

In this action-filled biography, award-winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals John Quincy Adams as one of the towering figures during the nation’s formative years.

Ranked first in John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize winning Profiles in Courage, John Quincy Adams served America as minister to six countries, a fearless secretary of state, a fighting senator and congressman —and sixth president of the United States.

The only son of a Founding Father to become President, he negotiated an end to the War of 1812, engineered the annexation of Florida, and won the Supreme Court decision that freed the African captives of the Amistad.

A sweeping panorama of American history, John Quincy Adams follows the exciting life—and loves—of an American patriot who lived more than eighty years and was able to serve under George Washington and with Abraham Lincoln. John Quincy Adams witnessed Bunker Hill, helped write the Monroe Doctrine and saw to the founding of the Smithsonian Institution.

Braving the outcries of other House members for his expulsion, he issued the first call to end slavery in an address that his fellow congressman Abraham Lincoln would borrow in writing the Emancipation Proclamation.

• Read an Excerpt from John Quincy Adams »