John Randolph

by Henry Adams

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Genres: Biography

313 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1882

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Noted Henry Brooks Adams wrote his nine-volume History of the United States during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison (1889-1891) and also The Education of Henry Adams , a famous autobiography, in 1918.

This oldest and most distinguished family in Boston produced John Adams and John Qunicy Adams, two American presidents, and thus gave Henry the opportunity to pursue a wide-ranging variety of intellectual interests during the course of his life. Functioning in the worlds of both practical men and affairs as a journalist and an assistant to his father, an American diplomat in Washington and London, and of ideas as a prolific writer, as the editor of the prestigious North American Review, and as a professor of medieval, European, and American history at Harvard, Adams of the few men of his era attempted to understand art, thought and culture as one complex force field of interacting energies.

He published Mont Saint Michel and Chartres , his masterwork in this dazzling effort, in 1904. Taken together with his other books, Adams in this spiritual, monumental volume attempts to bring together into a vast synthesis all of his knowledge of politics, economics, psychology, science, philosophy, art, and literature to attempt to understand the place of the individual in society. They constitute one of the greatest philosophical meditations on the human condition in all of literature.

Reviews

[Riq Hoelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 17-page foreword by modern historian Robert McColley is really the best part because it discusses what the biography got right and wrong. It almost makes one not want to read the rest. But the rest is interesting as a perspective on the founders that is not celebrating, or apologetic, but openly critical. It's almost as if John Adams had risen from the dead in 1884 and shared his thoughts on what had been happening. Just be sure to go back and re-read the foreword again afterwards.

[Gregg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was intriqued by character John Randolph in Adam's History of the US during Jefferson Admin.

[Miles Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A historically signifigant work, and perhaps Adams' finest work of pure biography. This is probably the most famous unsympathetic bio written before the First World War. The whole work is worth reading the last third of it veritably sparkles. Randolph’s greatness is impossible to hide. Even as Adams denigrates Randolph the former can’t help but marvel at the Virginian's speeches, his courage, and his rare mix of anger and selflessness.

[Jacob Kipp · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic by one of the great American historians who take son the greatest critic of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Henry Adams presents Randolph as the spirit of the planter class in gthe early Republic. Well written.