From Cambridge, Adams will continue to Philadelphia to help forge the principles that will become foundations of American particularism. The arduous journey, expected to take two weeks, allows McCullough to summarize Adams' character and accomplishments. It will not be the most significant journey of Adams' life. Nor will it be the most dramatic. But it captured McCullough's fancy for reasons known only by him.
Biographers are like that.
Few want to begin a biography with the subject's birth or the subject's ancestry. At the beginning of the book, the contemporary practice is to violate chronology, even when chronology is followed more or less in the chapters to follow. McCullough portrays Adams as a nonstop talker, so nonstop that some of his colleagues find him irritating. Adams is aware of his incessant talking. How McCullough knows about Adams' self-perception is unclear.