The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

By: Stacy Schiff

Narrated by: Jason Culp

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

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Stacy Schiff (P)2022 Little, Brown & Company

A much needed book

This book goes a long way toward filling a gap Revolutionary Era history. I wish it hadn't skipped over his later life.

Honorable

Great history lesson on the sacrifices of our forefathers and what America MUST stand for.

Fascinating character

I wasn’t aware of the leading role Samuel Adams had in articulating a principled stand against Great Britain, and how his propaganda / correspondences eventually pulled the the colonies together to launch the Continental Congress. His personal story was also intriguing — suffice to say he found his purpose leading Boston and Massachusetts in opposition to the Stamp, Townsend Acts, et al. Lots of wonderful color on the slow burn of revolution.

History needs some editing

After reading “Revolutionary,” any student raised in the public schools of America should decry that history books need a LOT of editing. Sam Adams is front and foremost to our history and to our independence from England. He didn’t want recognition, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t owed him. Thank you, Mrs. Schiff for the painstaking effort it took you for almost a decade to research and write this book. (There should be more than a beer named after Sam Adams ;)

OK

I expected more with all the hype this book has received. Parts were very interesting— others were a slog. The narration bothered me. I felt like I was listening to a lecture instead of someone telling a story.

The real story of the birth of the American Revolution

The book makes clear all the things you never learned in high school. The Revolution was so much more than the Boston Tea Party. A modest man, an organizational genius and a visionary who didn’t believe in self promotion. The book lays out in all the necessary detail the seeds Adams planted and nourished that bloomed into the American Revolution. A fine and nuanced accounting of the motivations, personalities and events leading up to the Continental Congress. Adams’ final years were less than he deserved but it appears he was encumbered by the ravages of age and possibly Parkinson’s disease although the book does not speculate.

A History of Someone who Hid in History

This was an excellent look at one of the founders, and one of the few major figures of the American Revolution to not leave behind much of his own writing. The writing is balanced, without praising or criticizing more than is deserved.

The often overlooked founding father

The beginning of American history should start chapter 1: Samuel Adams. A fantastic book for any history lover.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book.

I enjoyed this book very much since I was quite familiar with John Adams, and his son, John Quincy, Samuel Adams was not someone I knew very much about. In listening to this story, I learned quite a lot, and actually felt Samuel Adams was much more a player in creating a basis for our revolution

Great work

Fascinating work, there is a lot of history that I am not familiar with here.