Another reason I couldn’t live in Southern California and commute between Orange and Pasadena

I couldn’t afford all the books-on-tape that such a 90 minute commute would chew up.

I’ve finished up John Adams by David McCullough, and his 1776 as well. The former is definitely the better book, though a more annoying recording.

I’ve had the hardcover John Adams for a couple of years, but never gotten further than a chapter or so. The recorded book goes a lot faster and occupies my commute-time mind quite nicely. Adams is a Revolutionary era figure I’ve always found fascinating, and McCullough does a marvelous job fleshing out a man who has slipped somewhat between the cracks, Washington and Jefferson taking the limelight (and Mt Rushmore), but who at the time was considered at least as major a figure as they. Extensively drawing on the endless letters of of Adams, his wife, and hundreds of surrounding figures, McCullough gives us a vibrant picture of pre-Revolutionary Massachussetts, the events leading to war, Adams’ tireless rhetorical fights for “Independency,” and the further tales of Adams ambassadorship to France and Britain, thence to the Presidency (and the narrow avoidance of war with France, due in no small part to his middle-of-the-road efforts).

The book, however, is massive, and the inevitable abridgement (even to 10 CDs) is done in massive chunks. That’s certainly easier, and even arguably the better course, since a narrator bridges the gap with a summary. But it leaves out some hugely key periods, including Adams’ appointment to the Court of St James, and the rise of political parties that so influenced his presidency. The campaign against Jefferson is also given short shrift. These gaps, some of the more interesting bits in Adams’ biography, are maddening — though it makes me want to go back now and read the book, so perhaps they are also fiendishly clever.

1776 is a lighter work, focusing (mostly) on the military campaigns during that year (broadly defined — we start in the Fall of 1775, and end in January/February 1777). Unlike Edward Herrmann’s stirring narration in John Adams, McCullough narrates this, and he’s passable but not inspiring.

The story, though, certainly inspires. The cliches of Washington’s military career — the silent, stoic, brilliant general leading a ragtag rabble army in the bitter winter — have an element of truth. But Washington was far from silent, and McCullough’s thesis is that without Washington’s perserverence in leadership — even with his blunders in both strategy and tactics — the Continental Army would have failed, and, with it, the Revolution. The hardships of his army’s survival are grimly described, and the climactic crossing of the Delaware to take the Hessians at Trenton, though our current myths of it bear only half a resemblance to the truth, was far more harrowing than even those myths make it out to have been.

The book holds together less thematically than the Adams biography. By its nature, the story is a slice of time, and despite the discussion of Washington, many other characters and military leaders — even George III — take center stage at times. Nonetheless, it’s a gripping story.

At 5 CDs, 1776 went quickly (the book is 400pp, vs 736pp for John Adams), but it did increase my knowledge of the early armed days of the Revolution — the Siege of Boston, the debacle in New York, and the dark days of that winter — tremendously. The abridgments were not as irksome as in JA, either, which was nice. All in all, a good “read.”

Currently in the CD deck: A Great Improvisation : Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, by Stacy Schiff. Yes, there does seem to be a theme. And, so far, so good …