John Hancock: First to Sign, First to Invest in America’s Independence

This zippy biography from Randall (The Founders’ Fortunes) resituates John Hancock as the forgotten impresario of the American Revolution. Hancock had a spartan early childhood followed by the extreme good fortune of being adopted by a wealthy merchant uncle. After becoming the richest man in Boston in his early 20s following his uncle’s death, Hancock developed a complex relationship with money, reveling in personal ostentation (he rode around in a yellow carriage and developed gout from decadent eating) while spending lavishly on public works. He also chafed at British taxes along with other early revolutionaries John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere, but his larger-than-life persona and—under the ever-fluctuating British tax system—not strictly legal import-export business made him the easiest target for British crackdowns. Beset on all sides (including by Sam Adams, who was disgusted by Hancock’s profligacy), Hancock was remarkable, in Randall’s telling, for persisting in putting himself and his massive fortune on the line, serving as president of the first Continental Congress and, for many months, as sole signer of the Declaration of Independence (hence why his name was writ so large). Randall also strikingly suggests that the reason Hancock is so overlooked in Revolutionary literature is that he makes rich people uncomfortable with how much he risked and gave away. It’s a winning reassessment that will charm readers. (June)