Reveals how the European travels of John and Abigail Adams helped define what it meant to be an American From 1778 to 1788, the Founding Father and later President John Adams lived in Europe as a diplomat. Joined by his wife, Abigail, in 1784, the two shared rich encounters with famous heads of the European royal courts, including the ill-fated King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette, and the staid British Monarchs King George III and Queen Charlotte. In this engaging narrative, A View from Abroad takes us on the first full exploration of the Adams's lives abroad. Jeanne E. Abrams reveals how the journeys of John and Abigail Adams not only changed the course of their intellectual, political, and cultural development-transforming the couple from provincials to sophisticated world travelers-but most importantly served to strengthen their loyalty to America. Abrams shines a new light on how the Adamses and their American contemporaries set about supplanting their British origins with a new American identity. They and their fellow Americans grappled with how to reorder their society as the new nation took its place in the international transatlantic world. After just a short time abroad, Abigail maintained that, "My Heart and Soul is more American than ever. We are a family by ourselves." The Adamses' quest to define what it means to be an American, and the answers they discovered in their time abroad, still resonate with us to this day.
Jeanne E. Abrams is Professor at the University Libraries and the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, where she is also Director of the Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society, and Curator of the Beck Archives, Special Collections. She is the author of First Ladies of the Republic: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, and the Creation of an Iconic American Role and Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health.
A fine history of John Adams' years in Europe from 1778 to 1788 (Abigail joined him in 1784)...Insightful and satisfying history. * Kirkus Reviews * In the first book devoted specifically to the Adamses' life abroad, Jeanne E. Abrams has weaved a compelling tale of their first encounters with European culture, politics, and society. Significantly, neither John nor Abigail was seduced by the charms of the Old World. Both came away from their foreign adventures more firmly committed than ever to a belief in American exceptionalism and the importance of the young United States within the world of nations. This book adds a fascinating dimension to our understanding not only of John and Abigail Adams but to our understanding of the emergence of an American identity. -- Rosemarie Zagarri, author of Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic A masterful account of how John and Abigail Adams's domestic lives were forever altered by their cosmopolitan adventures in Europe. Jeanne Abrams' scholarship plunges us into the Adams's world, where intimate family dynamics and political power-plays entwined to mold the conscience of one of America's greatest patriots. -- Adam Rovner, author of In the Shadow of Zion John Adams has been neglected of late in favor of his flashier colleagues, such as Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. In A View from Abroad, Jeanne Abrams reminds us of the importance of Adams's diplomatic skills as well as the crucial role of his brilliant wife Abigail. Abrams makes a clear case that both Adamses were central to establishing the place of the United States in the world community. -- Rebecca Tannenbaum, Yale University Abrams's readable style and vivid descriptions enliven the Adams world...Abrams's valuable book is a must-read not just for scholars and enthusiasts of American revolutionary or diplomatic history but for all who wish to understand the development of American institutions and identity. * H-Diplo * Studies of the founding fathers and mothers exist in an overcrowded genre, but Jeanne E. Abrams has found a unique angle in A View from Abroad... she garners insights that others have missed. She also regularly advances and adds to arguments throughout the text made by Jonathan Dull, Pauline Maier, David Waldstreicher, Gordon Wood, and others, making this work relevant to multiple historiographic discussions. This book should prove of great interest to scholars of the American Revolution, early republic, and diplomatic history as well as those interested in questions of identity and material culture. Just as importantly, Abrams writes well and the text has a strong narrative, which should allow it to reach a more popular audience than most university presses. * H-Early-America * In A View from Abroad, Jeanne Abrams ... offers a masterful study of John and Abigail Adams during a previously overlooked era of their lives ... The family focus reminds readers that diplomacy was a social and cultural labor that relied on household participation in courtly protocol and genteel interactions as much as political negotiations between state officials ... with this family history comes an intriguing and largely unseen look into the role of women in U.S. diplomacy ... historians will find this book to be a welcome addition to recent studies that have cast Adams in a new light. * Journal of the Early Republic * Abrams's prose is eloquent.... [Abrams provides] sharp insights in an accessible manner. * Presidential Studies Quarterly * Other books have chronicled the close relationship between John and Abigail, but Abrams adds to the story by exploring Abigail's contributions to this 'politically minded family.' This is an absorbing account of the Adamses in the decade after American independence. * Choice * In this detailed account of the couple's time abroad, Abrams clearly and convincingly highlights their preoccupation with not only American identity but also America's future... the value of Abrams's work is that it allows us to see vividly the Adamses as well as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, among others, in an exclusively European context. Their sojourns in Great Britain and Europe are not mere sideshows ... Rather, we can see each of these important founders adrift at sea together, trying to imagine and reimagine national and cultural realignments in a complicated and alien environment, all while grappling with what their own country's existence meant to each other as Americans, but also to the Atlantic world...While the main thrust of the work regarding the development of an American identity in contrast to British and European mores is interesting and worthwhile in and of itself, the book takes on added value for the depth of coverage given to Abigail and Nabby as well as other women. Women's history emerges as a subtext in this work. * The Journal of American History * Abrams's study contributes to a growing literature on the founding of the United States that purposely transcends the geographic boundaries that have so often framed studies of the period. * New England Journal of History * AView from Abroad accomplishes the difficult task of examining familiar historical figures during a well-studied period while nevertheless gleaning new insights, not just about the historical actors in question, but also about the broader world they navigated. This study will be of interest to scholars of the American Revolution, the Age of Revolutions, and the Early Republic. In addition, because of its thematic focuses, it will also be of interest to scholars of diplomatic history and material culture. -- The New England Journal of History * The New England Journal of History * Abrams presents a thorough treatment of a well-defined scope: Adams in Europe. [Her] prose is eloquent... and [she provides] sharp insights in an accessible manner. * Presidential Studies Quarterly *
