Wednesday, May 12, 2021

The Education of Henry Adams

Review essay by John Patrick Diggins of:
- The Education of Henry Adams: A Centennial Version, by Henry Adams, edited by Edward Chalfant and Conrad Edick Wright;
- History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), by Henry Adams, edited by Earl N. Harbert; and
- History of the United States During the Administrations of James Madison (1809-1817), by Henry Adams, edited by Earl N. Harbert;
in the Claremont Review of Books.

"Writers on the Left dismiss Adams as a white male elitist of the Brahmin starch collar class, and they can hardly acknowledge that the American historian who died 90 [now 103] years ago had sharper insights about power than do today's Marxists and poststructuralists. Scholars on the Right may find Adams too alienated from the timeless truths that they feel America needs in our culture of relativism."

See Henry Adams, "The United States in 1800", from History of the United States of American, in volume 6, and "St. Thomas Aquinas", from Mont Saint Michel and Chartres, in volume 10, Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963).

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