POTUS 6 Redeemed at 250

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of John Quincy Adams, and a new compilation of his diary entries, edited by Distinguished Professor David Waldstreicher (History), has received glowing reviews in The Wall Street Journal and The Christian Science Monitor.

The Journal reviewer, Richard Brookhiser, wrote that Waldstreicher's two-volume distillation of Adams's voluminous writings "will be the standard reader's edition of this masterpiece, which gives an account of both a fascinating life and a thrilling, disastrous period of American history."

Adams (1767-1848), the sixth president of the United States, a diplomat, and a member of Congress, was a consummate chronicler of his eventful life. He started the diary at age 12, during the American Revolution, and kept it up through the years leading up to the Civil War when he served in the House of Representatives.

The Christian Science Monitor called the diaries 'spellbinding' and noted, 'Historian David Waldstreicher does an outstanding job editing this enormous mass of material, 51 manuscript volumes, almost 15,000 pages.'

In a recent essay in The Atlantic, Waldstreicher asserted that Adams, who, late in his career, vociferously opposed the institution of slavery, 'not only prophesized but actually laid so much of the groundwork for the Civil War.'

"JQA left, in his life and his diary, the example of a statesman, distracted by many projects and woes, who, late but true, grasped the vital question," Brookhiser concluded in his review of the diaries.

Read and hear an interview with Waldstreicher on the diaries.

Learn more about Waldstreicher's research and publications.