BOOK REVIEWS [ 8l ] then there was Julia Ackley, suddenly afflicted with cold chills, caused (she confessed to her diary) by sympathy for the adored husband with whom she had joined the community and to whom she could no longer accord the forbidden "special love!' Yet, pervading this work, as has always been the case in accounts of this unique experiment, was that remarkable individual whom William James once described as a "religious genius"—John Humphrey Noyes. sue gillies, The New-York Historical Society PAPERS OF JOHN ADAMS Volume I: September 1755-October 1773. Volume II: December 1773-April 1775. Edited by Robert J. Taylor; Mary-Jo Kline, Associate Editor; Gregg L. Lint, Assistant Editor. (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977. Vol. I, pp. xlviii, 356; intro., guide, illus., notes. Vol. II, pp. xii, 466; illus., notes, appendix, index. $50.00 set.) These two initial volumes in the series the Papers of John Adams cover the two decades before the Revolution, tracing Adams' career shift from teacher to lawyer, his entrance into the academic arena of politics—polemics—and his steadily increasing involvement in the real politics of both Massachusetts and the continent in the 1760s and 1770s. The bulk of volume I is devoted to Adams as intellectual, with the reprinting' of his newspaper essays of 1763, 1765, 1766-67, and 1773. Taken together, these writings establish Adams' position on those points of anthropology, ethics, economics, constitutional law, and human psychology, all of which constituted the political science of his day. The earlier newspaper series give us an excellent sense of Adams as a theorist, plus a clear understanding of the legalistic and moral cast of his mind. Not until 1766-67, when, as Humphrey Ploughjog- ger, he returns to spar in print with his personal friend and political enemy Jonathan Sewall, does Adams actually focus on the issues of factional politics. In these essays he offers a defense of anti-administration activity and a condemnation of Governor Bernard and Thomas Hutchinson. John Adams' growing importance within the radical circle is reflected in this shift to party issues. By the time he publishes his 1773 rebuttal of William Brattle's arguments in support of an independent judiciary, Adams is deeply enmeshed in the politicking as well as the theorizing on such issues. Volume II carries us into the crucial months of the winter of 1773-74 and up to April 1775. Appropriately, this volume's first document, a letter of December 17,1773, to James Warren, begins with Adams' signature phrase: "The Dye is cast. . . !' If much of March-May 1774 appears to have been devoted to the "Report to the General Court on Massachusetts Boundaries" (significantly, his last major research on Massachusetts as a colony), the remainder of the period is devoted to revolutionary policy-making. Adams'