A Magnificent Catastrophe Summary

Critical Book Review: A Magnificent Catastrophe

In A Magnificent Catastrophe by Edward Larson, he showed how the young nation of America was during the crazy election of 1800. This election was characterized like so because America had not really established itself yet. America was a young nation that was only partially defined in a sense. This informative piece of work featured two opposing sides with one goal, how American politics worked back then and how people schemed to make it to the top of this never ending cycle of the quest to become one of the most important individuals in the country. This election was so significant because the Constitution had been in place for over a decade. This time in history was when all was going to change

The book was very informative in the sense. It gives a Political Science student like myself, more knowledge on the personalities of these two well known and original patriots. Going into the book with no intensive knowledge on John Adams left me with a rather in depth understanding of what kind of person he would’ve been if I had ever met him. Adams seemed like a very determined individual who would do whatever it takes to keep his country at peace. An aspect I was surprised with, was that he wanted all of the power which seemed quite tyrannical in today’s

A key part would be how Larson intensively wrote about the dirty antics of the politicians. For example, Alexander Hamilton trying to prevent Adams from becoming Vice President. He willingly put words into Adams’ mouth to make him seem unfit for the position. This has ultimately changed my perspective on Alexander Hamilton. I thought of him as a very key figure in history because of the Revolutionary War not because of his sabotage of political affairs. This seemed like a negative aspect to me because it made him look bad as a character, or could have changed how people reading this book see him