After seeing the movie Amistad I was curious about this president who was pretty much passed over in our history books. This Hecht book satisfied all my curiosities plus some I didn't think of. She covers the public and personal lives of JQA. All the public figures of the time, great and near great, American and European, walk through these pages. And, yes, the Amistad story is there. I have limited vision so I save wear and tear on my eyes each day in order to be able to read this great book in bed before I go to sleep. Minor criticism: I have to keep paging back to determine the year of given happenings. The author could have repeated dates a little more generously. Otherwise it would be a five-star!