Heirs of an Honored Name

The Decline of the Adams Family and the Rise of Modern America

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By Douglas R. Egerton

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$19.99

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$25.99 CAD

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  1. ebook $19.99 $25.99 CAD
  2. Hardcover $35.00 $44.00 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around October 29, 2019. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

An enthralling chronicle of the American nineteenth century told through the unraveling of the nation’s first political dynasty

John and Abigail Adams founded a famous political family, but they would not witness its calamitous fall from grace. When John Quincy Adams died in 1848, so began the slow decline of the family’s political legacy.

In Heirs of an Honored Name, award-winning historian Douglas R. Egerton depicts a family grown famous, wealthy — and aimless. After the Civil War, Republicans looked to the Adamses to steer their party back to its radical 1850s roots. Instead, Charles Francis Sr. and his children — Charles Francis Jr., John Quincy II, Henry and Clover Adams, and Louisa Adams Kuhn — largely quit the political arena and found refuge in an imagined past of aristocratic preeminence.

An absorbing story of brilliant siblings and family strain, Heirs of an Honored Name shows how the burden of impossible expectations shaped the Adamses and, through them, American history.
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On Sale
Oct 29, 2019
Page Count
480 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9781541699700

Douglas R. Egerton

About the Author

Douglas R. Egerton is a professor of history at Le Moyne College. The award-winning author of eight previous books, including Thunder at the Gates and The Wars of Reconstruction, he lives in Fayetteville, New York.

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