Henry Adams

I’ve just acquired Garry Wills’ new book, Henry Adams and the Making of America (©2005.) Adams, who is best known for The Education of Henry Adams (1907) and Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904), is, in Wills’ mind, the greatest historian of the 19th century and the inventor of “the study of history as we know it.”

I’m not sure I’d go that far, but having read much of Adams’ work I have to agree that the man could write and that his insights into the origins of our democratic system remain as fresh today as when he wrote The History of the United States of America during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and The History of the United States of America during the Administrations of James Madison (1889-91.)

Wills calls this “the non-fiction prose masterpiece of the nineteenth century in America. It is a work that pioneers the new history coming into existence at the time. It offers archival research on an unprecedented scale in America, and combines it with social and intellectual history, diplomatic and military and economic history. This wealth of material is deployed with wit and a sense of adventure.”