John Hancock

"He was a rich, powerful aristocrat, a merchant king who loved English culture and fashion, and, above all, he was a loyal British subject with ambitions of a lordship and a grand retirement estate in England. There simply was no doubt about it: John Hancock was the least likely man in Boston to start a rebellion. How, then, did this Tory patrician become one of the staunchest supporters of the American Revolution?". "As Unger reveals in this portrait, Hancock was one of the most paradoxical figures of his time. Arguably the wealthiest man in the American colonies, he unabashedly reveled in his riches, adoring all the foppish trappings he could buy. But his commitment to individual liberty eventually transformed him into a fervent revolutionary, venerated equally by his establishment peers at Harvard as he was by the rebels - the Minutemen who did the fighting and the Boston street mobs who declared him their hero even as they burned the homes of other aristocrats. To repay their respect, he sacrificed his fortune and risked death by hanging to win independence from the British. A brilliant orator, he combined his wealth and political skills to unite Boston's merchant and working classes into an armed might that forced Britain's vaunted professional army to evacuate Boston, assuring the success of the Revolution.". "Here is the story of the man with the most recognizable signature in American history. Intertwining Hancock's story with that of the colorful Samuel Adams, his fellow Bostonian (and Harvard man) who was both comrade in arms and political enemy, Unger etches a finely drawn portrait of one of the Revolutionary War's greatest - and possibly least known - leaders."--BOOK JACKET.