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Henry Adams and the Making of America

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This book by Gary Wills will be of great value to anyone interested in Henry Adams, in the Jefferson and Madison administrations, and the writing of good American history. It is really several books in one. First, Wills poses the central query of the book: why are such outstanding historical contributions so little read or discussed today, especially since most everyone is familiar with Adams' Education? Basically, Wills in his Introduction concludes that most historians (such as Hofstadter) have only read the initial chapters which paint a less encouraging picture of the emerging United States than do the final chapters at the end of this long work. Also, it has often been assumed that Adams' history is really just an apologia ("the family feud" thesis) for John Adams and lacks independent professional judgment.

The second focus of the book, and that which is of most interest to students of Adams, occupies the next six chapters. This section is designated as "The Making of An Historian," and is chock full of interesting facts about Adams and his development into an historian. His ties to the South through his grandmother; his period teaching history at Harvard where he pioneered in the development of archival research; his activities during the Civil War; his stab at postwar political reform; his early writings and editorship of the North American Review are all covered with typical Wills insight and analytical clarity.

The bulk of the book is then devoted to a discussion of the actual histories of these two vital administrations. I found this to be less of interest as a student of Adams, although Wills is extraordinarily cogent in discussing his historical techniques (including archival research), but of great interest as a student of the early national period. Fortunately, Wills has utilized the widely available Library of America two-volume edition of the history, which facilitates greatly checking his references to the text. Adams' initial six chapters constitute an extremely useful survey of the United States at the start of Jefferson's first term. Then the narrative continues through both Jefferson terms. For Wills, Adams was attempting to demonstrate that national unity came out of Jefferson's administration because, ironically, it was well known that Jefferson placed such emphasis on localism, constitutional stringency and state control. There are very good discussions by Wills on the topics of the Burr trial, the Embargo, and the Louisiana purchase.

Madison's terms are less brilliant for Adams, basically because Madison was not dynamic as a leader. Wills demonstrates how skillful a military-naval historian Adams was with his analysis of the War of 1812 (which I never really understood until reading this book), as well as his command of the financial dimensions of history. The book concludes with Wills' discussion of Adams' final chapters where he analyzes the United States at the close of Madison's administrations in 1817 from the political, legal, religious, intellectual and aesthetic standpoints. For Wills, Adams' history would rightly be much more prominent had more historians made it all the way through and read these final masterful chapters.

All told, Wills has delivered his usual superb and stimulating product. His range of interests continues to amaze me (everything from St. Augustine to the construction of the University of Virginia to John Wayne and Gettsburg and more). I thought the notes were a bit thin for a book of this length, but the writing is as usual crisp, focused, and informative. A very substantial contribution indeed to the literature on Adams, Jefferson, Madison and American historiography.

This is a very enjoyable book by the intellectual polymath Garry Wills. In this book, Wills is concerned primarily with boosting interest in Henry Adams' great history of the USA during the Jefferson and Madison administrations. As Wills points out, Adams is recognized as a major figure in American literature, but mainly for his famous autobiographical work, The Education of Henry Adams. Wills praises Adams' histories as high points of historical scholarship and also as considerable literary achievements. Wills is correct. Along with the work of his fellow Bostonian, Francis Parkman, Adams' histories are the peak of American historical writing in the 19th century and by any measure, superbly written. Wills book is divided into 2 parts. The first part is a thematic review of Adams' career up until he began writing his major historical works. Wills shows how Adams' life experiences prepared him particularly well for producing the histories. His experience in politics growing up in the home of a prominent political figure was a superb introdution to American party politics. Service as his father's personal secretary when the latter was the American Minister to Great Britain during the Civil War introduced him to diplomacy at a high level. His interactions with an older generation of Boston antiquarians and historians provided a solid grounding in archival research and analysis, and his relatively broad education, including a stint in Germany, encouraged the relatively novel, increasingly empirical approach to political and diplomatic history that became the professional norm. Wills then proceeds to a book by book gloss and analysis of Adams' histories, explicating and criticizing Adams' analysis and conclusions.
Overall, this is a very enjoyable read and will certainly encourage readership of Adams' great works. Wills is enthusiastic about Adams but hardly uncritical. He is careful to show Adams principal shortcomings, particularly his racism. The book is written with Wills' characteristic erudite but graceful style.
I see some defects. While Wills is correct that Adams has been neglected, I think he exaggerates this a bit. Adams work is still the basic narrative for the diplomatic, military, naval, and much of the political history of this period. His basic insight, that Jefferson and Madison succeeded by adopting Federalist policies, is generally accepted. Nor is it entirely fair to say that the literary qualites of Adams work are not recognized. The closest we have to an official canon of American letters is the Library of America series. Adams histories of the Jefferson and Madison administrations have been published in their entirety in the Library of America. I would have liked to see some more historiographic discussion of Adams' place in the development of American historical writing. I think also that Wills is not correct in some of his minor conclusions. He takes pains to defend Adams against the charge that the histories were an effort to even the score against political opponents of his famous great-grandfather and grandfather. This is appropriate but it should be pointed out that the major figure whom Henry Adams really disparages is not Jefferson but Hamilton. John Adams undoubtedly resented Jefferson at various times in this life, but he really hated Hamilton. Similarly, Wills points out Adams' implicit endorsement of policies that built up the American nation during the Jefferson/Madison period. A capsule summary of these policies would be very similar, if not identical, to the political platform of the American Whig party of which John Quincy Adams was a prominent member. Wills takes efforts also to emphasize Adams' dislike of Boston but its worth recalling that Adams is a good representative of the remarkable stream of impressive American intellectuals - the James brothers, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Peirce, Parkman,etc., - who emerged from the intellectual orbit of Boston. Adams may have left Boston but Boston never left him.

Henry Adams's nine-volume History of the United States in the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison is by all accounts the greatest historical study written about the United States. Adams begins with a survey of the condition of the United States in 1800, following the election of Thomas Jefferson. He concludes sixteen years later with a description of the United States in 1816, following the end of the War of 1812. For all the turmoil of these years, the country had grown and prospered, and attained something of a sense of itself as a nation. Adams researched his history meticulously, discovered previously unknown documents in the archives of England, France, and Spain, and produced a detailed diplomatic, military, and political history of the era between 1800 and 1816. Fortunately, Adams' history is accessible in its entirety to the interested reader in two volumes of the Library of America series.

In his recent book, "Henry Adams and the Making of America" (2005), Garry Wills describes the creation of Adams's seminal history and leads the reader through Adams's work. Wills's book thus is in part a mirror, describing and commenting upon both Adams' history and the underlying subject of Adams' history -- the United States in the first 16 years of the Nineteenth Century -- and Wills explains why this history matters. Wills points out that Adams's history is too little known and read and that it is frequently misinterpreted. He offers two reasons for the misinterpretations.

First, some readers assume that Adams's aim was to vindicate the policies of his great-grandfather, President John Adams, and his grandfather, President John Quincy Adams by deprecating the work of Jefferson and Madison. But Henry Adams did not have a high regard for the work of his illustrious ancestors. He is critical of them both and praises the work of Jefferson, in particular, in helping take the United States in a different, pragmatic, and democratic direction.

Second, according to Wills, some readers tend to read Adams's histories backwards, through the world-weariness and pessimism expressed in Adams's most famous work, "The Education of Henry Adams". This reading overlooks the vitality, optimism, and sense of comedy that Adams brought to his History as he praised the sense of nationalism and progress that he found in the United States following the War of 1812.

I think both Wills's points are well-taken. But it is also fair to say that the United States grew and developed, by 1816, almost in spite of itself. Adams was not making a case for Federalism, but he also was not entirely in the party of Jefferson and Madison. His book shows a fine sense of irony and ambiguity in considering the development of the United States. Thus, the thought of the book has ties to the "Education," in that it suggests the accidental, unplanned aspect of history,and also shows, as Wills points out, some effort to see the history of the United States in terms other than as a dichotomy between two political parties.

Wills's book is in three parts. The first part offers background on Henry Adams, his relationship to his grandfather and to his grandmother Louisa, to Civil War America, and to the way in which Adams prepared himself for the writing of his history. The second and third parts of the book consist of a detailed discussion of Adams's history itself, with the second part dealing with the Jefferson administration and the third part with Madison's administration. With respect to Jefferson, Wills concentrates, as does Adams, on the Louisiana purchase, the conspiracy of Aaron Burr for Western secession, and the Embargo. With respect to Madison, the focus is on the War of 1812 and its aftermath. As Wills points out, the two major protagonists in Adams's history are Jefferson and Napoleon.

Wills offers both a good introduction to Adams's history and a good account of the 1800-1816 period in his own right. He amplifies and comments upon Adams's discussion with other materials and with comments of his own. In an Epilogue, Wills points to Adams's study as the first attempt at modern source-based historical writing in the United States. Wills finds the importance of Adams's work in the emphasis he places on the growth of democracy and on American nationalism I think Wills goes well beyond Henry Adams in some of his conclusions and observations.

Wills has written an excellent study which may encourage readers to read and think about American history and about the nature of American democracy and to explore on their own the great historical work of Henry Adams.

Robin Friedman

I was one of those who had only read "The Education" and found Adams a bit gloomy -- though his chapter "The Dynamo and The Virgin" I've found endlessly fascinating (see below). So, when I heard an NPR interview with Wills I bought the book. This is the point of the book: that historians and readers totally misinterpret Adams' view of America. He was a major and optimistic proponent of a United (!) States -- not a bunch of disparate states. So, another excellent book by Wills. Very good summary of the revolutionary period and especially the military problems (read Ellis' "His Excellency" on Washington soon after -- good combination).

As a side note, what's always fascinated me about Adams is here's a guy born into a 19th century life of letters (dark wood paneled libraries, quill pens, science only just separating from philosophy); heir to some serious 18th century heavy hitters, who lives to see Einstein's papers on light and relativity published. I think Adams might qualify as the last true American man of letters; someone whose mind could encompass (almost, but maybe not quite) all of science, literature and philosophy. When science took off at the revolution in physics, I don't think such a broad understanding of intellectual life was possible anymore.

Anyway, highly recommended.

g.

This is an extraordinary book. Ignore the condescending New Yorker review. Methinks, like Wills' "ill-read" historians who never actually read Adams' Histories, the reviewer never finished reading the book he or she reviewed.

Wills does a great job illuminating the preciousness with which many historians dismiss the work of their earlier peers. He also highlights the significant role Adams played in extending the use of original source materials in writing history. In this case Adams' connections played a huge role in gaining access to documents that would have been unavailable to many others.

I particularly enjoyed Wills' exposition of Adams's treatment of the 1812 Naval War, where he traces the similarities and differences among Cooper, Mahan and Roosevelt's histories of the same engagements.

Finally, Wills highlights Adams' interest and understanding of Government Finance which led him to emphasize the naivete of Jefferson's anti-Hamilton financial policies which in turn both helped trigger the War of 1812 and then brought it to an end.

The book is a great read. The only down-side is that it is so good that readers may have an almost legitimate excuse for not finishing Adams' original Histories.

Gary Wills contradicts the view that Adams history of the early American Republic was a critque of American imperialism but rather it showed Jefferson and Madison as being pragmatic expansionist. Jefferson abandoned his decentralizing inclinations during his presidential tenure by imposing a nationwide embargo against Great Britain and by including northern members in his Republican party thereby creating the basis for a national political party. Jefferson's successor Madison further advance the centralization of government by laying the basis for a national credit system and by using regular as opposed to militia forces during the War of 1812. Wills believes that Adams main purpose was to show that the founders were not bracketed in either Hamiltonian or Jefferson camps and were actually very pragmatic men that adjusted to events. I would reccomend this book for anyone who wants a new perspective of Henry Adams and his view of the founding fathers.

You've read what the academic types think of this book. Now for the opinion of someone who has never used "polymath" or historiographical" in a sentence.

I loved this book! I read The Education of Henry Adams in college and am an avid reader of US history as an adult. I have been reading biographies of each president in order, having recently completed John Tyler. So I have read a lot about the period covered in Adams' history of the Jefferson and Madison Administrations, but I am certainly no expert. And I still loved the book. It will definitely whet your appetite for reading the real thing.

As another reviewer said, it was really interesting to read a book about a book. It was like having an art historian explain a famous painting to you. You have your own ideas about it and don't necessarily agree with everything they say, but it brings you new perspective, understanding and background you would not have otherwise had.

Wills' work was lively, interesting and well-written. If you are not up to tackling the history, you learn a lot of history of the period vicariously by reading Wills' work.

This is an accessible work that rightly brings back into consciousness one of the all-time great pieces of American scholarship and literature.

This book examines the presidencies of Jefferson and Madison as seen through the eyes of Henry Adams and his nine volume history written in the later nineteenth century. It is an attempt to rescue Adams' history from the dust bin, claiming that it has been misinterpreted by even academics who have failed to appreciate its uniqueness and incisiveness. The author makes much of the fact that Adams was one of the first historians to base his work on archived material. The fact that he was from the prominent Adams family and had posted to England during the Civil War as a deputy to his father facilitated his access to materials as well as an interest in history.

Foreign relations dominated the early nineteenth century with the US being forced to deal with European hostilities, especially the impact of Napoleon. Also, the expansionistic tendencies of Americans butted up against the North American presence of Spain, France, and England at various times. Adams was mindful of personalities, ineptitude, and miscommunications both with foreign offices and within US government circles, especially the cabinets. Jefferson was in a fairly constant tiff with Chief Justice Marshall over such issues as John Adams packing the federal judiciary with Federalist judges, impeachments, and the trial of Aaron Burr for treason. The War of 1812 was the single most important event of the era beginning with the antagonisms engendered by Jefferson's and Madison's Embargo Act of 1807.

Both Wills and Adams remark on the irony of small government Republicans accruing sufficient national government powers to survive against European powers. They find the pragmatism of Jefferson to exceed any ties to ideology.

A mild criticism of the book is that it attempts to be both a work of history itself as well as commentary about a book concerning the same period. The narrative gets a little bumpy at times. There does seem to be a shortage of good histories of this particular period, unlike the last twenty-five years of the previous century. So it is a welcome book. It's doubtful that it would inspire many to pick up Adams' original work, however.

Earlier this year I read Henry Adams' "History of the US During the Administration's of Jefferson." It was a pleasure to read a book about a book.

Many of Adams' observations regarding Jefferson are easy to misunderstand. Wills does a wonderful job of context and fleshing out the personalities that Adams makes reference to.

The two personalities, Jefferson and John Adams are quite fascinating. Henry Adams takes a position that Jeffersonians have for years misunderstood. His book is not so much a criticism of Jefferson (although some of Jefferson's notions, such as conquering Canada using the Virginia militia need criticism) as it is an analysis of the ironies of his administration.

Anyone wishing to make sense of the USA now needs to understand the events of 1800-1808 and how they led to so many things we now take for granted.

Wills' book is great reading and sheds some very valuable light on Henry Adams' personality and motivations. I loved this book.

Think of this not as a review; those by Ronald H. Clark and Robin Friedman are thoughtful, thorough and well worth your time, but as incidental observations formed from reading this fine book from cover to cover.

First. Wills' erudition, scholarship and accessible style suggest that he may see himself as something of a 21st Century Henry Adams. I have no doubt that Henry Adams would approve of the comparison.

Second. In the Epilogue Wills directly confronts the view of the strict constructionists on the present U.S. Supreme Court (Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justices Scalia and Alito) that the original intent of the Framers must be treated as controlling regardless of the changes that have taken place in our country since the late 18th Century. As Wills points out,no sooner was the ink dry on the Constitution than Madison, "who drew up the rough document" said that "it was a first effort that should be 'liquidated' (clarified) in practice." As Wills puts it "It was like a blueprint that should be a guide but not a prison to contractors working from it."

Third, Wills makes the point in the Epilogue that Washington "is the least studied Founder in terms of what he thought" but "had a profounder understanding of what was needed and how to supply it than anyone else in the early period."