One learns more from Gordon Wood when he is wrong than from most other historians when they are right. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, even when I disagreed with it. While I appreciate its many virtues, however, I have to say that I do not find Friends Divided to be balanced in its assessment of the relative merits and demerits of its two subjects. In classic Wood style, this dual biography is gracefully written and full of his trademark sense of breathless wonder and commanding judgment. All of these qualities are brought to bear in his new book, Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. He sees further and more deeply into the causes and meaning of the Revolution than any other scholar of the last 50 years, and his ability to communicate that knowledge in graceful and engaging prose is unmatched. Wood is America’s greatest living scholar of the American Revolution. “You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.”
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