The problem of democracy The Presidents Adams confront the cult of personality

Review by New York Times Review

#+ |9781501197314 |9781501197307 |9781501197338 |9781508284505 ~ MF, the narrator of Ryan Chapman's debut novel, "Riots I Have Known," seems in fact to have known only one, which he relates via his blog from inside the Westbrook prison's Will and Edith Rosenberg Media Center for Journalistic Excellence in the Penal Arts. It's the first of the novel's many misdirections, a bait-and-switch operating at many levels. The novel is set during a riot, but its plot is incredibly static (the story ends in almost the same situation as that in which it opens); it boasts murders, shivvings, fights and beatings, but often treats these so lightly that they come across as jarringly bloodless. The central misdirection, however, is MF's claim that he is writing "an official accounting of events, as they happened," of his career as "the Widow Killer" to counter an unauthorized tell-all that he feels misrepresents him. But his promised account never emerges. Instead, as he waits behind a barricade of office furniture for the riot to reach him - at which point, he believes, he will be killed - he recounts episodes from his childhood in Sri Lanka; discusses his career as doorman at the Bearnaise, the upscale apartment building on Central Park West in Manhattan where he found his victims; and relives his triumphs as the editor of the world-renowned "post-penal literary magazine" The Holding Pen. Unlike Charles Kinbote in Nabokov's "Pale Fire" - whom MF sometimes resembles in his eagerness to give his work a "critical framework that is better imagined as, say, a critical latticework or, if you will, a critical escalier of faddish hermeneutics, correctional epistemologies" - Chapman's narrator seems not to be inflating the facts. We're told The Holding Pen has spawned fan-fiction and merch; been discussed on "60 Minutes" and on the Senate floor; gained broad popularity "in the Braille community, 'among sight-impaired and non-sight-impaired readers alike'"; and been named a '"key trend driver' in the Hong Kong luxury market." Some contributors, such as O'Bastardface and MF himself, become public figures. There's a lot of absurdity in this narrative, most of it intentional. The novel's being marketed as a guaranteed laugh, but at whose expense? It's true the novel makes short side-trips to mock wealthy donors and publicity-hungry wardens. But these don'tquite balance outthe jokes aboutanal rape or the stories of casual murder in the showers. Here is a story in which being incarcerated has so little real human effect that MF can insist his "idle hours" as a doorman "made the transition to Westbrook relatively painless." None of the prisoners, MF included, is especially rounded: The book gives far more space to puns, digressions and asides than to character development, and tends to classify inmates reductively as "skinheads," "Muslim Brothers," "Latin Kings" and so on. (Only Holding Pen contributors get slightly closer attention.) "Riots I Have Known" is less concerned with the prisoners themselves than with its late-nightcomic's trope of prisoners, but is repeating a trope with a lilt of irony enough to satirize it, or does repetition merely impress it further into the Silly Putty of our collective imagination? Is "Riots I Have Known" a rumination on the thoughtlessly dehumanizing way we treat our incarcerated, or simply one more example of it? TADZlo KOELB is the author of the novel "Trenton Makes."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 30, 2019]

---

Review by Booklist Review

To make sense of America's twenty-first-century political discontents, Isenberg and Burstein turn to the nation's second and sixth presidents, a father-son pair of one-term chief executives often dismissed as elitists, out of touch with their country's democratic spirit. As the authors recount the Adamses' decades of public service stretching from the Revolution to the Mexican-American War they depict both John and John Quincy as steadfast but tough-minded defenders of democracy. Readers will indeed struggle to square the Adamses' reputation as antidemocratic conservatives with the father's unyielding insistence on transparency as democracy's essential safeguard and the son's unrelenting fight against slavery as democracy's toxic antithesis. Astute students of ancient political thought, the Adamses strive to foster healthy democracy by heeding Cicero's teachings on civic virtue and Plato's warnings about plutocratic corruption. Though the narrative exposes faults in both men, readers will discern in them an admirable independence from democracy-damaging party spirit as they approach major issues, including impeachment and war. But as they watch cults of personality form first around the eloquent rhetorician Jefferson and then around the crude demagogue Jackson, the Adamses warn that such cults imperil democracy by fostering irrational partisanship. The Adamses' anxieties about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century threats to American democracy may bring to readers' minds the latest headlines.--Bryce Christensen Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Historians Isenberg and Burstein (Madison and Jefferson) reteam to provide a densely packed double-decker reassessment of the lives and political foresight of father-and-son presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. The time period ranges from John's pre-Revolutionary life as a farmer and lawyer to John Quincy's postpresidential stint as a House representative from Massachusetts starting in 1830; in between, the authors revisit key episodes from both lives that highlight the Adamses' nonconformist ways as a staunch warning against the ills of the partisanship, corruption, and personality politics that are rampant today. The authors point out parallels between the lives of their subjects, ranging from their long, successful marriages to the fact that a Hamilton played an instrumental role in both Adamses' losses of their reelection bids. Isenberg and Burstein provide an acute evaluation of the Adamses' intellectual development, and they have a knack for making prescient observations, such as John Adams's warning that candidates with "the deepest purse, or the fewest scruples will generally prevail." Analysis occasionally supersedes narrative, which can make this weighty analysis heavy lifting even for an interested reader. Readers fond of more traditional biographical treatments may want to pass on this one. Agent: Geri Thoma, Writers House. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

---

Review by Library Journal Review

Isenberg and Burstein (both history, Louisiana State Univ.) examined the diaries, letters, readings, and writings of John Adams and John Quincy Adams to disprove misperceptions regarding their ideas about democracy, as well as their dispositions and motivation. For these authors, the presidents were not the antidemocracy elitists history has commonly depicted them to be. They were principled, dedicated public servants whose reputations were, admittedly, affected by their temperament. But more significantly, their true legacies are clouded because of their nonconformist aversion to the nefarious political practices and popular democratic notions of their times. This book documents their tireless defense of representative government and warnings about the dangers of unrestrained democracy. As leaders, both continually worried about the reliability of a government influenced by divisive political parties, partisan media, and fraudulent politicians, as well as impressionable, emotion-driven voters who favored celebrity over expertise, merit, and seasoned judgement. Neither was afraid to risk unpopularity for the sake of what he considered right. VERDICT Committed general and academic readers will benefit from taking in this well-written and -researched study in its entirety, partly for setting the Adams' legacy straight, and additionally for the implications the story has on modern politics.--Margaret Kappanadze, Elmira Coll. Lib., NY © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Review by Kirkus Book Review

An unsettling yet well-presented argument that the failures of John and John Quincy Adams illustrate a disturbing feature of American politics.John Adams (1735-1826) became an early proponent of independence in the Continental Congress. Isenberg (White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, 2016, etc.) and Burstein (Democracy's Muse: How Thomas Jefferson Became an FDR Liberal, a Reagan Republican, and a Tea Party Fanatic, All the While Being Dead, 2015, etc.), professors of history at Louisiana State University who co-authored Madison and Jefferson (2010), show how he disliked aristocracy but worried equally about the problems of a mass electorate. He believed that selfish humans would look after their own interests and persecute minorities they disliked. His solution was a strong president to oppose powerful interests and keep the majority from abusing fellow citizens. Missing the point, Thomas Jefferson considered Adams a closet monarchist. He entered office in 1797 as an independent in a nation with two parties: Hamilton's Federalists and Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans. Both worked successfully to ensure his defeat in 1800. It did not help that Adams was quarrelsome and insecure, lacking Jefferson's cosmopolitan appeal. John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) became his father's secretary as an adolescent and spent a lifetime serving the nation as a diplomat, senator, and secretary of state. Equally testy and independent, he suffered the misfortune of running in the 1824 presidential election, finishing second to Andrew Jackson. No one obtained a majority, so the House of Representatives determined the president, choosing Adams. Of course, this enraged Jackson and his Democratic Party, which controlled Congress, ensuring that Adams endured an unhappy presidency. Besides lively, warts-and-all portraits of the men and the surprisingly nasty politics of the young nation, the authors delve deeply into their philosophies and those of Enlightenment thinkers who influenced them. They conclude that both were more intelligent and experienced than most two-term presidents but lacked the common touch, essential in America, where we "glorify equality but ogle self-made billionaires and tabloid royalty."A top-notch dual biography of two presidents who deserved better. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

---

Exordium Mythic Democracy  They were the only two chief executives in the American republic's first half century to be turned out of office after a single term. There is no giant marble memorial to either of them in Washington, D.C. Alive or dead, they do not embody the beau ideal of the democratic spirit. Who would claim that John and John Quincy Adams speak credibly, meaningfully, to the modern age? We would. It is precisely because they are not obvious symbols of democracy that we find the two Adamses compelling subjects as we search for a better way to understand how the United States could have proceeded from its ecstatic opening pledge--the magnanimous "spirit of 1776"--to where it is today as a distressed political system. No historical investigator until now has committed to telling in any depth the story of the first father‑and‑son presidents. In these pages, we retie the broken threads of our nearly 250‑year‑old political inheritance. We see the Adamses' experiences and their unpopular (but not necessarily wrong) positions as an opportunity to present to the politically engaged of our own time an accurate picture of a political heritage too many Americans are loath to address. It includes, but is not limited to, the unfortunate tribalism of the two‑party system. With a fixation on influence‑buying, poll‑shifting dollars, we live at a moment in history when confusion reigns as to the dependability of all high‑sounding founding‑era rhetoric. If you were to ask an average citizen what America stands for, he or she would most likely repeat something from grade school about freedom and democracy. The simplistic response is not to be mocked, but it does betray what's wrong: lack of definition. The framers of the Constitution did not erect a democracy. It was not their intent to do so. We must not assume that the United States is a democracy today ei‑ ther. That is why we have written this book. The presidents Adams are our vehicle in an effort to provide a germane, perhaps even urgent, interpretation of the nature of American politics. Persistent myths can no longer suffice. How, then, do we extend the discussion from what we think we know about the two Adamses to what we should know about them? John Adams, the second president, assumed a lead role in the looming Revolution, vocally defending the Declaration of Independence when it came before the Continental Congress. But that is not what we consider most memorable about him. John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, was the first president not to have been old enough to take part in the Revolution; he stood before the Supreme Court in 1841 and argued valorously in order to win freedom for the kidnapped Africans who had dispatched their captors on board the Amistad . But that is not what we consider most memorable about him. The best reasons we find for remembering the Adamses are those that concern their stubborn insights into human psychology. They understood the tricky relationship between human nature and political democracy, and how emotionally induced thought often undermined social and political justice. To the extent that their critique has been dislodged from America's proud history, it is because it does not comport with the ecstatic, celebratory, self‑congratulatory script that grew into the political faith we know as "American exceptionalism." If the emotive writer Thomas Jefferson planted the seeds of exceptionalism ("this whole chapter in the history of man is new," he pronounced), the presidents Adams cultivated a cautionary, less intoxicating political science favoring a balance of interests to counteract those urges that led a ruling few to undemocratic self‑aggrandizement. The two shared a critical disposition in perceiving (much as we moderns claim we can perceive) the hollowness of celebrity. They saw how image supplanted truth and how the public mind was captured by a clever concept that hid a political agenda. They took note as popular personalities acquired power over citizens' minds. Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were perfect examples. But they were neither the first nor the last. The presidents Adams knew that the powerful in government were elitists, no matter what they called themselves. There were those, like Jefferson, Jackson, and many of their fellow southerners, who skillfully employed a rhetoric that concealed their class interests, their impulse to protect those most like themselves; and there were those in the Adamses' New England who dismissed all social inferiors without apology. The two Adamses might have been snobs in their own way, but they hated all forms of deception and intimidation, subtle or direct, regardless of its origin. To the endless frustration of father and son, each spent the greater part of his po‑ litical career facing the same charge: of holding an especially dangerous degree of elitist sympathy. Guilty or not, they took a perverse pride in refusing to court public opinion through dishonest means. They were, in short, pained politicians. The presidents Adams were never very sanguine about the two‑party system, and this may be the most distinguishing feature in their political profile. Others forecast a favorable outcome to party competition, convinced that voters could safely decide which of two candidates best represented the majority's interests. The Adamses balked at this vision. They decried the hypnotic sway of "party distinctions" and "party spirit" as the bane of political life. On the day of his own inauguration as president, betting against his father's prognosis for one brief shining moment, John Quincy Adams allowed that the two parties that dominated the early years of the Republic had both contributed "splendid talents" and "ardent patriotism" along with the more obvious "human infirmity and error." For these defects, he adjudged, a "liberal indulgence" was due. Inaugural addresses were, then as now, intended to inspire more than to describe a work agenda, and over the course of a long and ruffled career in deliberative bodies John Quincy would nevermore invoke party business without presenting it as a history of manifest intrigue. Political parties did not guarantee democracy to everyone; they merely protected the interests of their most influential members. It is easy to relate to John Quincy's inauguration day remarks on the "collisions of sentiments and sympathies" that accompanied party rivalry. Father and son identified flaws built into the two‑party system that would prove fatal to the Union in 1860, and that continue to harass political society even now. As conspicuously, they detested the provocative mania parties allowed for, when they roused an intense enthusiasm for select, heroically framed men without objectively assessing their merit first. Few understand how much the Adamses worried about the emergence of one or another form of aristocracy in America, whether it was a moneyed oligarchy or a slave‑owning planter contingent that spoke with a single voice. Any faction that held outlandish power over laws and law‑making threatened good government. Their cure for malignant control was to be found in institutional solutions aimed at simultaneously mitigating personality‑driven considerations and preserving a balance of power across social classes. To synthesize, then, as much as this book centers on the Adamses' still fertile, endlessly rewarding world, it reassesses the roots of the fractured democracy of today. It tackles misperceptions, beginning with our common assumptions about democracy's historical inevitability as a function of ethical progress. It challenges the orthodox American faith in "government by the people." That hallowed phrase explains nothing. It ignores the real question: Who makes the wheels of power turn? Excerpted from The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality by Nancy Isenberg, Andrew Burstein All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

---