Sunday, November 5, 2017

Brookhiser on Wood's new book on Adams & Jefferson

Read about it in the New York Times here. Richard Brookhiser reviews Gordon Wood's new book on John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. A taste:
Silence fell between the two men. Abigail sent Jefferson a letter of condolence after the death of his daughter Polly in 1804, but their tentative correspondence almost immediately went nuclear. Friendship was finally restored through the efforts of Benjamin Rush, a colleague from the Continental Congress, who conducted a two-year campaign of exhortation, flattery and guile. Among Rush’s stratagems was telling Adams that he had had a dream in which Adams broke the ice by writing Jefferson. Adams finally did so on New Year’s Day, 1812. Enemies no more, the two corresponded until the end.

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