King Hancock The radical influence of a moderate founding father

Brooke Barbier

Book - 2023

"Today John Hancock is known for his signature, but during the Revolutionary Era, he was famed for his statesmanship. Brooke Barbier explores Hancock's position as a committed revolutionary who nonetheless understood the value of compromise. By shunning political extremes, Hancock became hugely influential in the infant United States"--

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BIOGRAPHY/Hancock, John
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Subjects
Genres
Biography
Biographies
History
Published
Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press 2023.
Language
English
Main Author
Brooke Barbier (author)
Physical Description
311 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-297) and index.
ISBN
9780674271777
  • Prologue: The Signature
  • 1. The Emergence of John Hancock
  • 2. Becoming a Man of the People
  • 3. The Bold and Brash Idol of the Mob
  • 4. Bad Press
  • 5. Life Outside of Politics
  • 6. A Coronation
  • 7. War and Attempts at Peace
  • 8. Declaring Independence
  • 9. The Art of Popularity
  • 10. Traitor to His Class
  • 11. Defending Massachusetts from the United States
  • Epilogue: Remembering Hancock
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this approachable biography, historian Barbier (Boston in the American Revolution) portrays John Hancock (1737--1793) as a political figure with "middle-of-the-road and often shifting political views." Born in Braintree, Mass., Hancock was raised in Boston by his uncle, a prosperous merchant and smuggler, whose business and wealth Hancock eventually inherited. In 1768, British officials seized his sloop Liberty, claiming it was laden with smuggled wine. Defended in court by John Adams, Hancock became a popular hero in Boston while he was derided by the British as "King Hancock." Yet Barbier contends that Hancock "was a moderate in a time and place of radicals," noting that the British lumped Hancock and Samuel Adams together as rabble-rousing traitors, while radical republicans like Mercy Otis Warren referred to Hancock as "the Guilded puppet." Barbier portrays her subject as a people pleaser, a man who always wanted to "feel accepted and seen," though she notes that Hancock didn't get along with everyone--as governor of Massachusetts, he locked horns with President Washington as he "grew more suspicious of the federal government." It's a reliable account of Hancock, even if Barbier's framing of the founding father as a political moderate is not fully realized. (Her view that moderates "are naturally prudent, cautious, and self-protective" sometimes oversimplifies political analysis by turning it into a personality assessment.) Still, American history buffs will enjoy the immersive portrait of Boston's Revolutionary era. (Oct.)

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