What did John Adams think of Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas about the status of women in political society? Or the theory that lightning rods increased the severity of earthquakes? Rick Brookhiser has a piece in the New York Times book review for this weekend called "John Adams Talks to His Books," in which he highlights some of the most interesting examples of Adams marginalia.
The essay almost coincides with an exhibit set to open on September 22 at the Boston Public Library, "John Adams Unbound". According to the library, "This event is the culmination of a three-year project to catalog, preserve, digitize and provide access to the extraordinary personal library of the second president, which has been held by the Boston Public Library since 1894." Some 3,700 volumes will be on display, and eventually the entire collection will be available online at www.johnadamslibrary.org.
I will certainly look forward to this exhibit and all the associated events (Adams is one of my favorite figures of the Revolutionary era), and I expect the new digital library will be most interesting and useful (as, I should note, is the ongoing digitization of the Adams Family Papers at the Mass Historical Society).
