A review by alanfederman
John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life by Paul C. Nagel

3.0

In my quest to read a biography of every president, this is #6. The writing was good, but there seemed to be too much on JQA as a person and not enough of his politics or the politics of the time. There was more written about his legal apprenticeship than his presidency. However he is a very interesting character - a master of languages at a young age (he taught himself French well enough at age 14 to speak at the French royal court!) and avid swimmer but did not come across as very personable. Next on to Andrew Jackson.