Customer Reviews

The Education of Henry Adams

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Nearing the age of seventy, when "the mind wakes to find itself looking blankly into the void of death," Adams wrote for his closest friends his version of the earth-shattering events they had experienced. He had 100 copies printed in luxurious editions and, in early 1907, sent them to such dignitaries as Theodore Roosevelt, William and Henry James, Charles Gaskell, and Henry Cabot Lodge. This private account was not released commercially until after Adams's death, in 1918, when it became a best-seller and won the Pulitzer Prize.

Many scholars and critics, as well as Adams himself, view "The Education of Henry Adams" as a sequel to his earlier book, "Mont Sant Michel and Chartres" (also privately printed). Indeed, the posthumous edition of the later work opens with an Editor's Preface (signed by Lodge, but presumptuously written by Adams himself) in which the author proposes subtitles for each volume: respectively, "A Study of Twentieth-Century Multiplicity" and "A Study of Thirteenth-Century Unity." While the two works are certainly linked thematically, they are not companion works in the traditional sense: "Mont Sant Michel" is a personal examination of medieval institutional and cultural history, while the "Education" is Adams's reckoning of his own involvement in international diplomatic affairs and intellectual circles. In other words, one can safely and profitably read one book without reading the other.

So what is this difficult-to-categorize book about? Reduced to its simplest level, it recounts how an "eighteenth-century American boy" grew up during the nineteenth century, only to be intimidated and awed by the chaos of the twentieth. The unity of earlier ages, when everything revolved around God and Church, had been exploded into limitless possibilities by the discoveries of science and the advent of democracy, and Adams realized that "the child born in 1900 would then be born into a new world which would be not a unity but a multiple."

This somewhat obvious yet essential theme aside, the joy of this book for many readers is Adams's sardonic wit and his penchant for aphorisms; the number of quotable quotes is both delightful and exhausting. A notorious name-dropper, he knows everyone, and offers an insider's account of the most important events of the nineteenth century, volunteering his views on international diplomacy, monetary policy, evolutionary biology, and other matters.

Adams portrays the journey of his life as an ongoing attempt at educating himself, yet he disdainfully learned that formal education was useless and that his dabbling had brought him to a dead end. "Religion, politics, statistics, travel had thus far led to nothing.... Accidental education could go no further, for one's mind was already littered and stuffed beyond hope with the millions of chance images stored away without order in the memory. One might as well try to educate a gravel-pit."

Of course, Adams's self-effacing protests of ignorance are often little more than a pose. His sense of innate blueblood superiority can be grating--a stance exaggerated by his writing about himself in the third person. He repeatedly (and backhandedly) reminds the reader how, as stupid as he might be, he is in good company: "Adams knew only that he would have felt himself on a more equal footing with them had he been less ignorant." "Lincoln, Seward, Sumner, and the rest, could give no help to the young man seeking education; they knew less than he." "Ridiculous as he knew himself about to be in his new role, he was less ridiculous than his betters." One of the most unintentionally satisfying sections of this book, then, is when Adams finds himself among true aristocrats in England--and they dismiss him as a social inferior.

As even Adams's biographer Ernest Samuels and Adams specialist John Carlos Rowe both acknowledge, the "Education" is an extraordinarily challenging work. Writing for his friends, Adams assumed a familiarity with arcane historical details about such affairs as American-Confederate-British diplomatic machinations during the Civil War, the Gold Scandal of 1869, and John Hay's role in developing China's Open Door Policy. Even the annotations provided by standard commercial editions may not be enough for many readers to flesh out what Adams is talking about.

If there ever was a book that requires a study aid, this is it. Assuming you can overcome the common predisposition against such guides, you will discover that CliffNotes provides, in a useful narrative form, the necessary historical and biographical background--although it is certainly no substitute for the wit and wisdom of the work itself. And, for those who finish reading the book and want to fill in the gaps, the more scholarly "New Essays on The Education of Henry Adams" (edited by Rowe) offers additional valuable insights with a minimum of jargon.

I can only laugh, to hear the reports of students being required to read Adams. If there is one thing I am certain, it is that Adams would not appreciate being assigned. "The Education" is intended for those real students whose *desire* is learning. I put special emphasis on *desire*, not for the sake of being pompous, but to distinguish this type of desire as being self-motivated. Adams "Education" is a tremendous rebuttal to the ordinary, institutionalized education. There is little doubt as to the socio-economic benefits and sensibilities of formal education, but one should also recognize its inherent limitations. People seldom enjoy what they are forced to do! Adams' "Education" is not to be read as a classic, or because well-read people discuss it over coffee...rather, read it because you're curious. If you've forgotten that school and education are distinct, let Mr. Adams show you the difference. And well meaning teachers of the world.....Phuhleease, don't require Mr. Adams, as you will ruin the experience. --One last note; I think the other reviewers miss the boat when they call Adams cynical and depressing. This is not cynicism, but wit-big difference. For cynicism see Sinclair Lewis' Babbit(which you shouldnt assign either I might add). As far as depressing, I just don't get that at all. It was patently obvious to this reader that Mr. Adams' high-mindedness and detachment were toungue and cheek. In writing his "Education" Mr. Adams, no doubt, enjoyed himself...and while reading it, so will you.

Dear Stefi, Now that there is a slight lull in the happy Chestertown merry-go-round, I want to write a paragraph or two explaining why <The Education of Henry Adams> is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. This is why it is so interesting: It was written about 1906 and covers U.S. intellectual and political history from about 1860 to 1906. What is clever about it is the cynical, humorous sophistication (very unAmerican) with which he, an insider, regards all of these events. The book, like Montaigne or Rousseau's <Confessions> is an autobiography and, like Montaigne, Adams is of the view that life should above all be amusing, so that any great enterprise should be undertaken only if it is indeed amusing. The driving idea of the book, however, is where to find the truth (you guessed it--he is still searching on the last page). The places where he searches are very intriguing. He begins at Harvard, where, says he, he learned nothing from books and only one thing from the classes: how to get up and talk in front of large crowds of people about nothing. He was required to do this routinely, and his speeches were, like everyone else's, greeted with hissing and criticisms, so he learned not to expect approbation from an audience. Adams got heavily into the debate about evolution (Darwin being the hot topic at the end of the nineteenth century), because he thought it was the main amusement of his era. His position on evolution is "reversion" rather than progress. One of his proofs is a comparison of George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant. He admired Washington (a great general who became a great president); he voted for Grant (a great general). He knew personally the members of Grant's cabinet, thieves or incompetents at best. QED: things are getting worse not better. In his old age (sixty), after many other amusements of a busy lifetime, he decided to do what I did at the age of twenty-two: to visit all the important medieval French cathedrals. (In 1958, I bought a car in Saarbrucken--VW bug--and drove to seventeen of the greatest cathedrals, Guide Michelin in hand, staying at the youth hostels.) His book is peppered with well-digested quotations from French literature; he apparently knew it from top to bottom. His goal was to understand the Middle Ages (unity in the Virgin) and to write two books, one about the unity of the Middle Ages (title: <Chartres and Mont Saint Michel>) and another about the diversity of the twentieth century, <The Education of Henry Adams>. Adam's book has a number of difficult spots (confusing original philosophy and historical references that mean something only to the well-informed historian), but the good parts are worth going on to find. I hope this vignette will persuade you to get through the boring chapters at the beginning of the book on his childhood in Quincy. The narrative becomes interesting only with his stories about the Court of Saint James where he spent his early twenties as a diplomat during the U.S. Civil War. From that point on, I think you will love it as much as I did. Cheers! Claire

I was intrigued by this book because it is almost universally considered to be the best non-fiction book ever written. I went into the book with an open mind and eagerness but ultimately found myself a bit disappointed.

Henry Adams was a member of the preeminent American Adams family (John and John Quincy were his great-grandfather and grandfather). Henry's autobiography follows his uniquely privileged life from childhood through old age as Henry witnesses (and always comments on) the ever-changing American experience and perpetually seeks to refine and further his understanding of the world around him. This relentless pursuit of "education" is the connective theme within the autobiography, as Henry continually considers and reconsiders the rapid scientific, technological, economic and political changes that swept through America and the world during his life. Ultimately, through these experiences and reflections, Henry comes to important conclusions about the role of education, learning and life experiences.

This book is filled with historical references and names from Henry's time period, making the book fascinating for someone who is interested in that period (mid 19th to early 20th Centuries). I personally did not find these references interesting and in several cases, I felt confused or lost because I completely missed important references. The strength of the book is Henry's always sharp observation and clever wit.

I think this would be a great book for those interested in Henry's time period or for those interested more broadly in American history. As someone with only peripheral interests in these areas, I found the book to be a little bit out of my league. People interested in this historical period will find this book quite rewarding though don't read it simply because it is supposed to be great-- for that would be an affront to Henry's belief in self-motivated education.

Its funny how some reading experiences emcompass more than just the book itself. In the case of Henry Adams autobiographical essay collection, The Education of Henry Adams, I always think of a sunny day in the park. The first time I read the book I was still in High School and believed that I had an obligation to read all those books that had been identified as "classics". This was one. I read most of it one afternoon while sitting under a large oak tree in Shelby Park in Nashville, TN. I remember contrasting the gloom and pessimism of Adams thought with the sunny day and the optimistic prospects I believed the future held for me. I argued with him as I read. I thought his reaction to Darwin, for example, was misplaced and in bad faith. I thoroughly disagreed with his argument in the chapter "The Virgin and the Dynamo"; I felt I knew enough about the Middle Ages to prefer living in a time of electric lights, running water, medical science and imperfect democracy than in a hovel in some Medieval village dominated by King and the Roman Catholic Church. I dismissed Henry Adams as a whiner and an educated misfit who had nothing to say to me.

Its also funny how the passage of time changes one's perceptions. Rereading the book a couple of decades later I was surprised to find how much Adams and I had in common. I still didn't agree with his particular nostalgia for a time he had never experienced except in his imagination, but his sense of loss, of powerlessness, of the world slipping into some dangerous entropic state, all rang true to me. I also had read enough history of the 19th Century to appreciate more his many insightful anecdotes of the period. The subtlety of his humor and the richness of his writing style I also found appealing. I found this reading to be a much more rewarding experience - and I can't tell you a thing about where I was at the time, except deeply into the book.

The title of "The Education of Henry Adams" sounds like an autobiography, but the book is really about the development of a man's conscience and theory of human history, using the world events of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a backdrop and a laboratory. Henry Adams -- whose great grandfather was John Adams, the second American President, and whose grandfather obviously was John Quincy Adams, the sixth -- is more than just a presidential legacy; he reveals himself to be a great thinker and writer, the brilliance of his "Education" ensuring him a permanent place in the American canon.

The book has a few attributes that distinguish it from a typical autobiography. The most noticeable is that Adams writes in the third, not first, person. He repeats the word "education" like a mantra throughout the book, referring to it in its literal, not formal, sense: the "bringing up", or development, of a person's mind, manner, and outlook. The narrative is very personal and is not, as some may expect, a rigid historical perspective, although it does offer plenty of commentary on contemporary historical and political events, from the Civil War to two presidential assassinations (Lincoln's and McKinley's, but not Garfield's) to the Industrial Revolution's impact on the American commercial landscape.

Adams writes like a novelist, and this book reads like a novel. His lyrical prose is all the more amazing because it seems like a product of the very education he finds so evasive. Growing up in Quincy, Massachussetts, he hated school; he even confesses that he got little to nothing out of his years at Harvard. Always hopeful to be educated by new experiences, he serves as a secretary to his father, an ambassador, in London during the American Civil War, where he learns about diplomacy from high-ranking British politicians. He proceeds to dabble in various arts and sciences, start a career in journalism, and become an instructor at Harvard, noting the irony of teaching while still searching for his own education.

Throughout the book we get a very vivid picture of Adams as an idiosyncratic mixture of humanism, modesty, shyness, erudition, and a polite sort of cynicism. He has a rather socratic tendency to dismiss all the previous knowledge he has collected as worthless for his continuing education, resolving to start from scratch with a new source. A curious omission in the book is the twenty-year period in which his marriage ends with his wife's suicide; perhaps this event was just too painful to write about, because it's difficult to believe that this experience could not have influenced the pursuit of his education.

If Adams's education can be said to have a culmination, it is in his development of a "dynamic theory of history," in which he compares physical forces (gravity, magnetism) acting on a body to historical forces, produced by the conflict of the sciences ("The Dynamo") against the arts ("The Virgin"), acting on man. With this initiative Adams embodies the nineteenth century American intellectual and political conscience: He proves in this book that he was a greatly informed man, but also that he was wise because he understood the difference between information and wisdom.

This books stands apart in autobiographies. Unlike autobiographies written in vanity at the crest of success, this one is written as a melancholic meditation on life, at the crest of what Henry Adams thought was his failure. Adams always refers to himself in third person and in the humorous and abject epithets giving the autobiography the character of a novel or a biography.

Henry Adams, was a historian, journalist and political private secretary, with intrests as varied as physics, chemistry, geology, evolution, mathematics, politics, history, and diplomacy. He was the son of a diplomat, Charles Francis Adams. His grand-father was John Quincy Adams the 6th president of USA and great-grand father was John Adams, the 2nd president.

Despite being one of the greatest American historians, with a successful career in history, journalism and literature, Adams regarded himself as a failure because he was inconsequential in politics and society as compared to his forefathers and his education based on eighteenth century principles of the founding fathers of USA, imparted through his relatives, peers, school, socity and the Harvard College, was unsuitable to meet the challenges of the world he was to grow into - the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Adams believed that the law of acceleration of forces in history lead to a situation where a person trained for a certain level of complexity finds himself at the mercy of forces of a higher complexity as he grows up. This was his theory of history, intimately derived from his experience of life.

He felt that all education through parents, school, college, work or life can never in its entirety prepare a person for life, because the society around you changes at an accelerating pace while your education rooted in your parents values and the value of the soceity of your childhood becomes obsolete by the time you need to put it to use. So at each stage of life man always needs to begin his education anew.

The merit of this books goes beyond just and insight into education, life or failure. It also illuminates the time from 1838 to 1905. Adams was close to political, literary, artistic and scientific circles in Europe and America and travelled far and wide visiting England, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Egypt, Mexico and Cuba, some of these countries again and again.

The books is rich in literary style and historical, literary, scientific, cultural, economic and sociological insights as it analyzes self, peoples, times and cultures.

Henry Adams managed to become a Modernist late in life. He was 62 years old at the turn of the century and a bit older when he wrote this memoir and yet his prose is crisp, direct and penetrating like that of Aldous Huxley rather like that of say Charles Dickens. I found myself re-reading passages of this books immediately after finishing them, purely to admire the beauty of expression. Adams is epigrammatic, conveying humor and wisdom with economy and an amazing sense of rhythm.

The content of this book is fascinating. His observations of 'New England character' early on are, to my mind, dead on, although it may be so that he actually invented this perspective on New Englanders. In either case it matches my post-Modern experience of the place and its people. Adams' insistence on treating all of life's events as either learning experiences or conscious wastes of time is an attitude that I suppose I've always had, but never 'brought to consciousness'. He is very tough on formal education, but one needs to be or it rapidly becomes a waste of time.

His application of the third person to his own self is very effective. He considers himself to have been essentially a pawn of history because of his pedigree. His use of this simple literary device detaches the character portrayed from the narrator and has the effect of leaving Adams adrift in the narrative of his own life. Other reviewers have actually complained that he does not deal with the suicide of his wife in this book. This is not true. He pointed stops the chronological narrative immediately before his marriage and picks it up several years later after she is dead. In a painful but enigmatic passage he describes daily visiting the statue that St. Gaudens designed for her grave and being angry that it has become a tourist attraction. There is much else expressed there, but I would have to re-read it to understand all of it, but I do know that the sadness is practically palpable on the page.

I can not say that I accept his 'law of history' related in the penultimate chapter of the book, but it has made me want to pick up his brother Brooks' book, The Law of Civilization and Decay, that has long sat on my shelf.

Henry Adams starts off his autobiography with a description of how tough he's had it living up to the standard of his president great-grandfather, president grandfather, and ambassador to the UK father. Lest the reader who was not born so high-brow as this laugh at the self-absorption that would permit such an upbringing to be conceived of as deprived, Adams then admits that being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth to coincide with such a lineage makes his a minor difficulty compared to the world's real problems. It is this self-awareness and honesty that makes this as excellent a book as it is. Sure, Adams had to live up to a high standard but he also was in a situation where it was possible to do it, and where even failure would be in comfort. Adams' descriptions of his life's longing for education are remarkably honest throughout, and his ability to step outside of the 'holy writ' of entrenched teachings shows that his was a mind that constantly sought answers actually worth their merit. He waxes philosophical (as opposed to autobiographical) at the end, but it is here ("The Virgin and the Dynamo," for example) that he may be at his most profound. Even if you don't agree with his thoughts, he does stimulate consideration of ideas that you may not have previously broached. Lastly, Henry Adams is/was a profoundly arrogant man, although not entirely condescending. I find this refreshing; that he knew his abilities and was comfortable enough in them to not feel the need to fake humility.

"The Education of Henry Adams" is a difficult book to review. But be forewarned: "The Education" will not appeal to many readers. It is hardly a book you'd bring to the beach or try to read for leisure. I first came across the book in a foreign policy seminar I took in college. While my professor took great pains to tell us how important "The Education" was -- it was named by Modern Library as the greatest non-fiction book written in the 20th Century -- the book was just boring to a 19-year, and almost certainly beyond my limited means and interest. Recently inspired by a blog series on the New York Times web site about "The Education", I decided to dust off my old copy, hoping that a few years wiser, I would be able to get through the whole thing, and even more importantly, have a better appreciation for Adams' book. After finally finishing it -- including the many detailed footnotes in the Samuel' edition -- I can safely say that while several parts of the book were very interesting, I would not recommend "The Education" to everyone.

"The Education of Henry Adams" is for all intents and purposes, a very unusual autobiography of Adams -- though I am sure Adams would disagree with that label -- told in the third person, chronicling the interesting life of a man born into an extraordinary family history, who led a fascinating life, but who never quite fit into the changing America as the 20th Century began to dawn. Henry Adams was a historian and one-time professor of history at Harvard. Born in 1838, Adams was the great-grandson of John Adams, the grandson of John Quincy Adams, and the son of Charles Francis Adams, the esteemed Minster to England during the Civil War. The book is written in such a manner that each chapter covers a year or series of years in Adams' life, beginning in 1838 and ending in 1905 (though Adams himself died in 1918, he ended the book in 1905; further, the book does not cover the 20-year period of his marriage to Marion "Clover" Hooper, who tragically killed herself in 1885 following a long depression).

Part of what makes "The Education" so compelling -- at least to me, is that the book serves as an eyewitness account of some of the most important events and periods of American history between 1840 and 1900. Adams offers very insightful and sharp observations of many of the great events of his time; though, it is important to note that Adams was in Britain for the entire Civil War, serving as a private secretary to his father, so Adams does not offer great analysis of what was going on in America during the Civil War. Perhaps not coincidentally, some of the most boring chapters in "The Education" are those covering the years 1860 to 1870.

More than anything else, however, "The Education" is a story of a man who felt out of place in the fast-changing America of the late-19th and early 20th Century. From Adams' perspective, the book is a tale of his pursuit of an "education" in life that would help him adapt to, understand, and live in the new America. Throughout the book, Adams laments his abject failure in accomplishing this objective, and generally considered himself a failure unable to live in the United States as it entered onto the world stage as a super power. Reading the book, it was very interesting to me how Adams conceived himself as a man of the 18th Century, and I think his inability to live up to the political successes of his ancestors -- who could?! -- was hugely depressing to him as he went through life.

"The Education" has several chapters on numerous recurring themes which Adams well examines and often lampoons, such as American politics and the U.S. Senate (his chapters on the pitiful Grant Administration and the state of U.S. politics are extremely funny and pretty much on-the-mark, even 130 years later), the conduct of diplomacy (given Adams' family history and his own interests, he had a tremendous background in diplomatic issues, and was best friends with Secretary of State John Hay), and the rise of technology and its affect on the United States (his chapters on the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the 1900 Paris Exposition are two of the best chapters in the book). Regarding the latter area, Adams was both intrigued by and terrified of emerging technologies like the faster locomotives, cars, and other devices, which he called the "dynamo". In several passages, he predicted that while new technologies would advance civilization and America's standing, they would also reap devastating results for the world. Given the birth of the Atomic Age and what has happened since, one could argue that Adams was incredibly prescient.

Despite the book's many pluses, it is not without its considerable flaws. Perhaps I am just not educated enough myself, but the book is extremely hard to read today. First written by Adams around 1903, "The Education" does not all translate well to 2008, and I had to read many of the passages and pages multiple times to understand what Adams was trying to say. Further, while Adams' wit and self-deprecating humor are amusing at first, it becomes very grating as Adams seems to refer to himself as a failure on every single page. Finally, there are certain periods of Adams' life -- particularly his lack of service during the Civil War and his marriage (which he does not mention once in the book) -- which he disappointingly did not discuss much at all.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my review, "The Education" is not a book for everyone. It takes a good deal of time to fully read and digest, and its themes are fairly nuanced and not always terribly exciting. That being said, if you're a student of history and interested in learning about American development between 1840 and 1900 from one of the 19th Century's great historians (Adams wrote a nine-volume history of the U.S. during the Jefferson and Madison Administrations, which, to this day are considered the gold standard in early American history books), you should consider checking the book out. If you do want to read "The Education", I strongly recommend that you purchase Ernest Samuel's edition. Samuels wrote a three-volume biography of Adams, and knew more about Henry Adams than anybody else. Samuels also included a wealth of detailed footnotes throughout the pages; while many people like to avoid footnotes, they are quite valuable with a book like this where Adams is constantly referencing old German words and 15th Century French figures as if his readers were all supposed to know them! So, the Samuels edition (the one with the green cover and published by Riverside Editions) is the edition you want.

I liked "The Education" and I would like very much to read his forgotten histories of the Jefferson and Madison years, but I have to admit that I don't know if I could ever make it through them considering Adams' writing style!

Three stars.