John Hancock First to sign, first to invest in America's independence

This zippy biography from Randall (The Founders' Fortunes) resituates John Hancock as the forgotten impresario of the American Revolution. Hancock had a spartan early childhood followed by the extreme good fortune of being adopted by a wealthy merchant uncle. After becoming the richest man in Boston in his early 20s following his uncle's death, Hancock developed a complex relationship with money, reveling in personal ostentation (he rode around in a yellow carriage and developed gout from decadent eating) while spending lavishly on public works. He also chafed at British taxes along with other early revolutionaries John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere, but his larger-than-life persona and--under the ever-fluctuating British tax system--not strictly legal import-export business made him the easiest target for British crackdowns. Beset on all sides (including by Sam Adams, who was disgusted by Hancock's profligacy), Hancock was remarkable, in Randall's telling, for persisting in putting himself and his massive fortune on the line, serving as president of the first Continental Congress and, for many months, as sole signer of the Declaration of Independence (hence why his name was writ so large). Randall also strikingly suggests that the reason Hancock is so overlooked in Revolutionary literature is that he makes rich people uncomfortable with how much he risked and gave away. It's a winning reassessment that will charm readers. (June)

Thoughtful life of the all-but-forgotten Founding Father. John Hancock may be best remembered for what historian Randall calls "his large, flamboyant signature on the Declaration of Independence"--if, that is, he is remembered at all, for just 15-odd years after Hancock's death in 1793, John Adams would lament that he was "buried in oblivion." Hancock's many contributions to the revolutionary cause included using much of his significant fortune, earned as the head of Boston's leading mercantile concern, to finance the military; he also helped push the Constitution through, argued over "by paragraphs, until every member shall have had opportunity fully to express his sentiments," after helping offset contending state interests in the fight over the Articles of Confederation. Randall reminds readers that the years immediately after the war ended were fraught: Frontier rebellions broke out over taxations and pensions for military service, and, briefly, "Pennsylvania and Connecticut had actually gone to war" over territorial issues. A Federalist but also a pragmatist, Hancock championed nine "Conciliatory Amendments" that led to the Bill of Rights, to which he added the 10th, which reserved to the states any "powers not expressly delegated to Congress." As well, apart from serving as a well-liked governor of Massachusetts, Hancock--serving his own interests to be sure, but also with an eye on the larger U.S. economy--helped restore postwar trade with Britain. For all that, Randall notes, Hancock weathered numerous controversies, mostly financial; he was also the subject of a possible canard that Randall corrects--namely, that he wished to be commander of the Continental Army and resented George Washington for being selected for the post, when in fact, Randall writes, Hancock suffered so badly from gout that it is unlikely that he "would have accepted a position that would require long days on horseback." A solid addition to the literature of the American Revolution. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.