The Education of Henry Adams

This is my second least favorite book thus far from the Lifetime Reading Plan. My least favorite being the Q'uran.

Henry Adams was the grandson and great grandson of Presidents. Although a Bostonian, he inherited an eccentric outsider-dom from his famous forebears, and remained to the end of his life apart from the business community of that city. Adams has the disconcerting habit of speaking of himself in the third person like Jimmy from Seinfeld. "Henry Adams doesn't like this steak! Henry Adams wants you to send it back!"

As a part of the family of Founding Fathers, he stands between two centuries, the eighteenth and the twentieth. He wrote this book in 1904, and at age 66 he is still forward-looking, wondering what the twentieth century has in store. He was fly on the wall for the nineteeth.

After concentrating the narrative on his education, which includes Harvard, he concludes that the education one picks up accidentally is more valuable then what one received intentionally at even the most respected institutions. After that, the bulk of the heart of the book is spent on Charles Francis Adams' (Henry's dad's)tenure as American Minister in London during Civil War years, and Henry's tenure as his personal secretary (Nepotism? Naaaahh!)At first, the American minister is shunned by members of Parliament, as the predominant opinion was that the Union would not survive the Civil War. But C. F. Adams is persistent, circumstances improve, and the Minister attains victory in the Laird ironclad affair. Adams has little good to say about the character of English politicians in general, but ends up making a few very close friends.

When he reaches 1870, he suddenly skips twenty years. It just so happens that during this period was when he met and married his wife, who with Henry, and others, comprised the predominant intellectual salon in the U.S. This was also the period where Adams had his salad days as author and Harvard history professor. Seems to me this would have been prime material to include, but as he felt he wasn't being "educated" during that period, he skips it.

Unfortunately, the post 1890 years are anticlimactic. At the end of the book, he tries (IMO unsuccessfully) to articulate his "dynamic theory of history". In reading about this, I couldn't help but think of the closing chapters of Tolstoy's "War and Peace", where the great Count makes a more lucid case for a scientific approach to history. Like Tolstoy, Adams seems to imagine a future figure not unlike Isaac Asimov's Hari Selden, a "psychohistorian" who can use the science of history to predict future events.

Also unfortunately, Adams was a clear product of the Victorian Age. Those guys never told the real dirt on themselves. This would have been a good book in which to do so, as one is educated by his youthful maistakes and indiscretions. It's a shame, but one thing you never think when reading this book: "Oh Henry Adams! What kind of crazy shit are you gonna do next?"

The style of the book is mannered, curlicued, and sometimes opaque. For those who wonder why, this book is exactly why the world needed a Hemingway. ( )

This is a book much better suited to a person with a good background in American history. Adams writes about pivotal events for an audience that does not need the background information. If you don't already know the story of the "Alabama", you won't understand it any better for reading Adams' account of his time in England when this was a crisis. However, I thought his observations about the New England character, London society, the rise of technology and many other topics quite interesting. He was born into a household of great privilege and has the modesty to acknowledge it. Writing of the infant with two presidents in his lineage "Probably no child, born in the year, held better cards than he." It is also Adams' burden that he feels he must live up to a family tradition in a world that changes rapidly during his long life. ( )

When the author completed this book he had 100 copies printed and he sent them to his friends. It is a very personal autobiography, there are several mentions of Rousseau's Confessions. It was only after his death that it was published for retail sale, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1918.
Adams' life was full of interesting people and events many of which are talked about in this book. As a Civil War buff I enjoyed the five years Adams spent as the private secretary for his father, the American Ambassador to England, 1860-1865. There is a chronological format but Adams does not tell the story of his life. He does not include the death of his wife or any of his writing as topics in the book. Adams did have some irritating traits. He was a snob. I am sure it was how he was raised. His attitude was tinged with cynicism that was at times unpleasant. He did not try to sugar coat what he had to say and he had a lot to say on several levels. There were parts of the book I'm not sure I understood and that was frustrating.
There is a level I would call patter. A description of where he went, who he saw and what they said. This is always interesting because he had a very interesting life. He traveled a lot and spent time with some very interesting people. He goes progressively deeper into the world around him until he is talking about a dynamic theory of history.
Adams is very intelligent and very observant. He tells an excellent story. He wrote this at the end of his life and he definitely has some words of wisdom to pass along. He also has a sense of humor which flashes out occasionally.
Adams does not portray himself in a very positive light. He doesn't talk about his accomplishments very much. I felt sometimes that Adams as the grandson and great-grandson of Presidents didn't feel that he had accomplished much in life.
The book is very good literature. The writing is noticeably from a different era. I enjoyed the book. While I recommend it, it may not be for everyone, I don't think the book was written to entertain others.

This makes me want to read Mont Saint Michel which is supposed to be one of his best. ( )

I'll agree with the ratings of this among the best nonfiction of the 20th century. It is another of my favorite genre, the "books about everything." It covers roughly the period from 1850 to 1905, and hits on almost every major historical and intellectual development of the time, but from a unique personal and anecdotal perspective. Adams was a man of great gifts and cultivation, but with a unique, eccentric, mugwumpishly conservative temperament that makes his collision and confrontation with the early modernist era he lived through especially instructive and relevant to our own time. The filters of what his worldview did and didn't take for granted reveal fresh insights about our country's rapid and jarring growth from an agrarian experimental republic into a modern industrial superpower. ( )

It is easy to be overwhelmed with characters and events of history that you are not familiar with, but if you are patient, you will see this book as an interesting inside look at an important period of change in the United States and the world as a whole. ( )