Samuel Adams: Father of the American Revolution

by Mark Puls

Book Overview

Winner of the 2007 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award Samuel Adams is perhaps the most unheralded and overshadowed of the founding fathers, yet without him there would have been no American Revolution.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1403975825
• ISBN13: 9781403975829
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 273 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Remembering The Father Of The American Revolution

In this biography of one of the most neglected of the Founding Fathers, Mark Puls seeks to remind Americans of the role that Samuel Adams played in bringing an independent United States of America into existence. And he does so brilliantly. As Puls demonstrates, Adams had come to the conclusion that the liberties of the colonists in his native Massachusetts and elsewhere in British America would never truly be safe until those colonies had broken free from British rule. He reached that conclusion in 1765, a full decade before the idea would even seem to become thinkable, and 16 years before it would become a reality with the defeat of General Cornwallis at Yorktown. Slowly but surely, Adams embarked on a two-pronged strategy of confronting the British and communicating his ideas to his fellow colonists and uniting them in the ongoing struggle for Colonial liberty. On the first ground, Adams achieved remarkable success in organizing the effort to resist British rules and twice forced Parliament and the Crown to withdraw tariffs meant to extract money from the Colonies to help repay Britain's war debt. On the second, he initiated contact, and eventually Committees of Correspondence, between Massachusetts and all of the colonies. Adams lived to see his dream come true, not only with independence itself, but with the formation of a truly remarkable system of government. Puls does an excellent job of bringing the work, ideas, and influence of this forgotten Father of the American Revolution back into the light of day where they belong. If you want to truly understand how the American Revolution came about, you need to know about Samuel Adams. And, Puls's biography is an excellent resource.

Without Sam Adams there would have been no Revolution

Strong statement to be sure. Read this book to find out why it is true. It is a mystery to me why most historians seem to attach little more than a few footnotes to Samuel Adams. Noyone worked more steadfastly to both educate and organize the colonists. In spite of having a wealthy father and a Harvard education, Sam chose a life close to poverty so he could dedicate his considerable talents to the Revolution. The Declaration of Independence is essentially a rewrite of a 1774 position paper that Sam authored. This book also makes a valiant effort to present a British perspective on why they believed that taxation (without representation) was viable. Your knowledge of the revolution is incomplete without an education on Samuel Adams, the father of the American revolution.

The Father of the American Revolution Is Given His Due

No one has articulated it any better than Mark Puls when he states in his concluding remarks that " Americans of his generation came to view Samuel Adams as the spirit of liberty and the patriarch of liberty". Jefferson may have written about the ideals of independence more eloquently; Washington may have acted upon those ideals more directly; and, Franklin may have translated those ideals more concretely abroad to our French allies; however, no one of our founding fathers wrote more frequently, acted more fervently, or lived more fully and focused on the prize of separation and independence than Samuel Adams. Maybe it's because Adams shunned the spotlight and the attention that others of his era sought so impassionately to grasp, or perhaps, he was content to simply see from the background the ultimate fruits of his prodigious labors. Whatever the reason, Adams emerged as the leading patriot strategist,politician as well as most influential writer in America. The author has truly captured the essence of the man who deservedly is called the Father of the American Revolution. It is a well-witten, if not long overdue, tribute to the mastermind behind the War of independence.

Excellent Read on Sam Adams!

I recently read that, "The purpose of a biography is to report on a person's life in an informative and entertaining manner." Mark Puls does this extremely well with this book. Samuel Adams is the most under reported and under appreciated Founder, but Puls book does a terrific job of adding context to his life and his amazing singular focus on achieving liberty for the colonies. Most biographies of the other Founders and historical works of those times don't fully flesh out for the reader the period of the early 1760s until 1775 and Lexington and Concord. Puls' tells this part of the American founding in a way I have never read before. He conveys the crucial role Sam Adams played in a way I had never heard in depth before. I found it a fun, easy ready, full of great information and revealed a Founding Father that we should all come to know better. This book is a great place to begin, and I recommend it highly.

Samuel Adams--Rabble-rouser

When we think of our founding fathers the names of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison come to mind. However, prior to these men becoming household names we had Samuel Adams, rabblerouser and trailblazer. Sam Adams is often overlooked because he neglected to document his place in history regarding our break with England. He was not a material person, and while others wrote autobiograhies he made no effort to see that his place in history would be secure. At brewing beer he was a failure, but at starting a revolution he rated A+. He did possess the gift of leadership and organization which led other members of The Sons of Liberty to follow him, and to assure that the other colonies became united against the abuses of England towards the American colonies. Adams suffered several personal losses throughout his life. Among them the death of his first wife, several children including his physician son Dr. Sam Adams, who served as a battlefield surgeon during the Revolutionary War, and a physical affliction of palsy which made it difficult for him to write. In regard to the Constitution he saw the need for a check and balance of powers among the three branches of government. The book is only 237 pages long, but it's about time we had a biography of this neglected founding father, because he saw independence as a goal for America before it entered the mind of anyone else.