Pegasus Books
288 Pages
From the cover of this book and the quick write up it received on another review site, I initially made this book a part of my Presidential Reading Project. However, once I started it, I quickly removed this book from that project. While I still finished the book, The Times That Try Men’s Souls by Joyce Lee Malcolm has no place in that project. In fact, this book was very disappointing right from the start, and it did not get any better. This book should be avoided at all costs if you’re looking to read much of anything about the Adams family, despite the claim on the cover.
Based on the cover, I assumed that this book would be about the Adams and Quincy families in the lead up to the Revolution, through that war, and the subsequent years after the peace. In fact, most of the reviews I read made the same claim. I am not sure what book those reviewers were reading, but it definitely was not this one. For the first time ever, I gave a book a one-star review on Goodreads. I always strive to find something positive in any book I read, but this book was one of the very rare outliers. I couldn’t find much redeeming in this, nor could I recommend this book to anyone else.
From the beginning, I called into question the abilities of the author as an historian. Right away, her placement of Fort Ticonderoga on the Hudson River made me question her qualifications. Fort Ti, as it is affectionately known, is one of the pivotal places of the American Revolution. To have an alleged Revolutionary historian so egregiously misplace it did not bode well for the rest of the book. Adding to the misery of reading this book is the author’s rambling and disconnected thoughts throughout the narrative. She mentioned the Little Ice Age three times without explaining anything. Likewise, she reiterates no less than five times that Josiah Quincy lost all three of his sons at sea. Malcolm has a tendency in her writing to make assumptions and to also get lost in her own work. It makes for some terrible reading.
I was also expecting more on the Adams family. I was very disappointed. Other than some cursory sentences where their worlds overlapped, she barely mentioned Adams. Her focus was mostly on the Quincy family. Even in that, the focus was more on the Loyalists than the family as a whole. In my opinion, the yin and yang between Loyalists and Patriots in the same family could have been enlightening and engaging. However, the author fails in this simplest of tasks.
What we’re given in this book is less a story of the Quincys, Adams’ and the American Revolution, even though that’s what the cover claims. Instead, we’re delivered the author’s very obvious bias towards the British monarchy and her near disdain for the colonists in their fight for independence. At every turn, she focuses only on the ugly side of the American fight, while bemoaning the treatment that the Loyalists receive in their own country. Obviously, these things happened and we’re not going to ignore it. However, Malcolm ignores the ignobilities that were thrust on the Americans by the British counterparts. There is a very limited attempt to balance the record. From beginning to end, Malcolm tends to use the British viewpoint of the Americans as “rebels,” never calling them “colonials.” She barely calls them Americans.
In a history book, an author’s personal bias has no place in the story. Of course, it usually sneaks through at least a little bit. Joyce Lee Malcolm presents all her bias on each page of the book. She makes no attempts to excuse her own narrow minded views. Instead of giving her readers what to think, she tells them what to think. That is an example of not only a poor historian, but also of a poor educator.
I always try to find something that I liked about a book that I read. I could not find anything in The Times That Try Men’s Souls that I could pull from the abyss. This is simply a bad book. Thankfully, it is a short book, which means that I didn’t have to spend a lot of time on it before I took it back to the library. Thankfully, this was not a book that I spent money on. It would have been a waste of my limited resources. I am still amazed that this book got such good reviews. I read a lot of history books, and this one just doesn’t live up to even the minimal standards.
I would never tell someone else not to read a book, but The Times That Try Men’s Souls by Joyce Lee Malcolm might be one of those that I simply cannot recommend to anyone. If you’re looking for a book that talks about the Quincys, the Adams, and the American Revolution, this is not the book for you. Based on the cover, it’s false advertising. If it was rebranded as a look into the Loyalist struggle before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, then it would have far greater merit. As it’s marketed, this book simply does not pass the test.
Craig Bacon is a stickler for accuracy, even if it’s ugly. But don’t try to dupe me with your bias in a book where it doesn’t belong.