Bob Crawford & Alexis Coe: America’s Founding Son

John Quincy Adams was born nine years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and he died as the United States was sliding irrevocably toward Civil War. In between he was a foreign ambassador, secretary of state, sitting president, and finally ex-president and sitting congressperson. In America’s Founding Son, Bob Crawford—best known as the bassist for the Grammy-nominated band The Avett Brothers—traces Adams’s unparalleled life and career. He helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine, which was evoked as recently as the day Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was arrested. He is also the only ex-president to serve in Congress, where he confronted slaveholders and challenged the nation to live up to its founding ideals.