Historian Harlow Giles Unger recounts the life of americas sixth president on quincy adams who died in 1848. Quincy adams was some of the second president john adams had a long political career which included, aside from his presidency, ten years of secretary of state, senator, congressmen and miniature. This is a little under an hour. I will start with a very simple question. Was there a moment you said to yourself i need to write a biography of John Quincy Adams . Yes, indeed, there was. A couple years ago when i ran out of any ideas on the Founding Fathers. Others had written on washington, jefferson, madison, and id written on Patrick Henry, james monroe, james hancock. So i pulled out john f. Kennedys cal woods prizewinning book profiles in courage and their in chapter 1 was John Quincy Adams. I thought his name begins with a xu chapter 1. Thats not the reason he was in chapter 1. John kennedy himself a war hero had listed these characters in order of the degree of courage, and he