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Henry Adams and the Making of America
An eye-opening profile of the greatest historian of the nineteenth century assesses the seminal role and influence of Henry Adams on the study of history, discussing his use of archival sources, firsthand reportage, eyewitness accounts, and other techniques that transformed historical study and created a paradoxical view of American history that still informs modern-day policy. 60,000 first printing.
467 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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384 people want to read
About the author
Garry Wills
155 books253 followersGarry Wills is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1993.
Wills has written over fifty books and, since 1973, has been a frequent reviewer for The New York Review of Books. He became a faculty member of the history department at Northwestern University in 1980, where he is an Emeritus Professor of History.
Wills has written over fifty books and, since 1973, has been a frequent reviewer for The New York Review of Books. He became a faculty member of the history department at Northwestern University in 1980, where he is an Emeritus Professor of History.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
November 9, 2024
A Study Of Adams's History
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
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
Currently reading
April 5, 2020Wills decries our ignorance of Henry Adams great history of the early nineteenth century. (I fear I belong to the vast number of ignoramuses with regard to this work.) Wills sets out to rectify that nescience. Apparently, Adams even had a very different slant on the Jeffersonians, arguing that their four terms at the beginning of the 19th century provided for the development of a national unity that they seemingly eschewed publicly, ostensibly supporting a decentralized and weak government. In reality, Wills says Adams perspicaciously, says they began the development of American identity and empire. Of course, it's been my observation, especially given our most recent 8 years, that ideology always succumbs to a desire to consolidate power. I'm guessing that even Ron Paul would have pulled the reins a little tighter despite his rhetoric. Wills writes well and with erudition. Fascinating so far. Updates to follow.
February 15, 2013
This book is several things at once. It is American history covering the Jefferson and Madison administrations. Yet it is this history as seen by reflecting on Henry Adams' life and his nine-volume History of the United States of America, and criticizing, when (rarely) appropriate, Adams' text and (often and vigorously) other commentators and critics.
There is a thesis running throughout. On the surface it is to maintain that, contrary to most interpretations, Adams saw the administrations of Jefferson and Madison as progressive, as basically good years, because they adapted the nation to geopolitical realities and witnessed and promoted growth and national unity. Dig a bit deeper and it is a commentary and evaluation which distinguishes the virtues of adaptive, democratic politics from the debits of that kind of conservatism which, during these presidencies, characterized the Federalists--a commentary with implied relevance to all times.
There is a thesis running throughout. On the surface it is to maintain that, contrary to most interpretations, Adams saw the administrations of Jefferson and Madison as progressive, as basically good years, because they adapted the nation to geopolitical realities and witnessed and promoted growth and national unity. Dig a bit deeper and it is a commentary and evaluation which distinguishes the virtues of adaptive, democratic politics from the debits of that kind of conservatism which, during these presidencies, characterized the Federalists--a commentary with implied relevance to all times.
July 3, 2008
Adams, according to Wills, is underappreciated and, in particular, his nine volume History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison is a neglected masterpiece. Wills’s goal is clearly twofold: prove his point and get you to read the masterpiece. However, when I am reading a single volume book summarizing a masterpiece of nine volumes I admit I’m thinking better than two birds with one stone is getting ten volumes by reading one. But Wills isn’t easily denied. A persuasive writer, he first convinces you that Henry Adams’s history has been misread by the few who have read it and reported on it in their own histories. Then he convinces you that as good as The Education of Henry Adams, Democracy, and Mont St. Michel and Chartres are, this earlier work may very well be better. The history, he argues, makes the case that America became a nation, not a ragtaggle of partially settled coastal states, under the Jeffersonians and Adams approves of this. Conventional viewpoints were that Adams wrote to defend his grandfather (JQ) and great-grandfather (John) by disparaging Jefferson and the Republicans but Wills shows the opposite to be true. That not only wasn’t Henry fond of either of his ancestors, politically or personally, he thought Jefferson and Madison, despite their citizen-farmer bias and anti-Federalist views made decisions that put the United States on a path to a strong national government, with a standing army and navy, and westward expansion as a federally supported urge. Wills also, by quoting liberally but not cumbersomely, makes the case that Adams was a gifted stylist. Here he is describing a seemingly inexplicable American perspective on Spanish Florida’s standing…that somehow it was part of the Louisiana Purchase even though we purchased it from France, not Spain. “[Livingston] was forced at last to maintain that Spain had retroceded West Florida to France without knowing it, that France has sold it to the United States without suspecting it, that the United States had bought it without paying for it, and that neither France nor Spain, although the original contracting parties, were competent to decide the meaning of their own contract.” So, I’m buying the Library of America set of these histories. Thank you, Garry Wills, an American master in his own right. He is one of our best popular historians, in the best senses of both the adjective and the noun, and a fine, thoughtful and entertaining writer.
February 3, 2015
I was reading this book in tandem with a biography of Adams's wife, Clover. I disliked the way Garry Wills puffed himself in the opening chapter of this book, even if it was at the expense of long-dead historians. By the time I abandoned the book, I was tired of Wills's parsing of Adams interpretations of the history of the young republic. Also, I felt like I learned more about Henry Adams the man from the life story of the woman who married him and subsequently committed suicide. Wills's book served to remind me, however, of the beauty of Henry Adams's prose, which is something I might want to revisit at a future date. Perhaps I'll read The Education of Henry Adams, his most popular work (though Clover is not mentioned in it).
June 23, 2014
A distillation of and commentary on Adams 9 volume histories of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison. Essential for those who no longer have the leisure to read the originals. Adams was a Zelig like character who was part of the politics and artistic activity of his time. As the grandson and great-grandson of presidents he had access to archival material not available to many others. But it was his insight that was impressive. After more than a hundred years his work still remains important reading for historians including his history of the War of 1812. This book accords him his due respect.
July 28, 2021
It's my custom to pick a reading in American history to celebrate the Fourth of July each year. In browsing my bookshelf, which is amply stocked with Garry Wills, and my eye caught this title. I'd bought it and read it when it was published in 2005, so I thought I could dip into it to meet my quota of patriotic reading.
Wrong.
I can't "dip into" Garry Wills. There are few living authors of whom I've read--and re-read--so much. I was like a fish thinking I'd just take a nibble of that juicy worm and avoid the hook. No way with this expert angler of readers. And as I read and quickly realized that I wasn't going to read just a portion of this work, I also realized that I was really getting a twofer by doing so: extended quotes of Henry Adams along with a guided tour from Wills. Indeed, as Wills explains, the book serves as a mini-biography of Adams and a guided tour of Adams's great work, The History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (1801-1817), originally published in 1889 and1891 and consisting of nine volumes. Is this long venture worth it? Wills describes Adams's work here as ""the greatest prose masterpiece of non-fiction in America in the 19th century." And as to Wills, I'll venture the opinion that he's one of the outstanding prose stylists of the later 20th and early 21st century America, as well as serving as one of our most astute contemporary political observers and historians (among other achievements). This is a perfect match.
The first main contention Wills argues is that History is misread (if read at all) and overshadowed by Adam's The Education of Henry Adams (written in 1906 although not published until 1918). Wills describes The Education as a"world-weary and pessimistic view of the nation and its politics." But the History was written by Adams when he was in his forties and reveals "a man optimistic, progressive, and nationalistic, instead of one detached, arch, and pessimistic [compared to the author of The Education]. Even the prose begins to look different, more energetic, flexible, and engaged, less mannered and self-conscious." Wills also shatters the contention, surprisingly wide-spread, that Adams was out to defend the honor of his great-grandfather John Adams and grandfather John Quincy Adams. Not so. Adams wasn't keen on his grandfather or his New England heritage, nor was he sour about Jefferson. Finally, historians who know better often read only the opening, which consists of a social history of the United States in 1800. While some may praise this part of the work as a pioneering effort of social history, they ignore the remainder. But such a limited reading, as Wills describes it, consists of "the chrysalis without the butterfly, the windup without the pitch." With these three misconceptions dispatched, Wills then walks the reader through Adams's History and related works (biographies of Albert Gallatin, John Randolph, and an unpublished biography of Aaron Burr).
Early on Wills alerts the reader that because of Adams's ability as a stylist that he'd quote Adams at length and frequently. This allows the reader to appreciate the basis of Wills's assessment of Adams's skill as a stylist, and the reader also comes to appreciate Adams as a keen observer of politics (even remotely in time). Will devotes as a chapter to each of the nine volumes of the History, thus providing a history lesson along with an assessment of what Adams accomplishes. But it is near the conclusion the book that Wills comes to reflect on the project as a whole the reader strikes the richest vein of observations and assessments.
As to the history itself, Wills agrees with Adams about the significance of the Jeffersonian reign (which includes Madison's two terms). He writes:
"ADAMS HAS TOLD a dramatic story in his nine volumes—how a nation stagnating at the end of Federalist rule shook itself awake and struck off boldly in new directions in the first sixteen years of the Jeffersonians' rule. In one way, this picture corresponds with accepted notions. Jefferson had, after all, promised a "second revolution." But his aim was initially a conservative one—to return to the original Revolution, which had been betrayed by the Federalists. He would draw back from the world, hobble federal power, let states and merchants conduct their own affairs. He promised to be even more wary of foreign entanglements than President Washington had been. He would recall embassies, put the navy to sleep, get rid of all taxes but customs duties, and give himself little to do. Adams agrees that there was, indeed, a second revolution—just not the one Jefferson thought he would be conducting. Yet he gives Jefferson the credit for aspiring to a new revolution, whatever its shape. Jefferson did not betray his principles in riding these new energies. It just proved impossible to return to the days of the first revolution, whether that was conceived in Federalist or Republican terms.
. . . .
Politics had moved on. Old political alignments no longer applied when the New Englander John Quincy Adams was serving as secretary of state to the Virginia president James Monroe, and when a Connecticut Supreme Court justice like Joseph Story wrote opinions indistinguishable from those of the Virginia chief justice John Marshall."
Wills also describes the multiple feats of historical accomplishment and unique insights that Adams reveals in his work:
"What sets Adams's History apart, in its own time and in ours? There are a number of original features. It turns upside down the previous consensus on the period covered, so drastically that many have missed the point of the History entirely—which is not that Republicans became Federalists in office, but that they led a breakout from both ideologies. Adams brings to bear on his daring thesis many kinds of evidence, archival and cultural, that had not before been so deftly interwoven. The book also thinks internationally while telling a national tale. No other general account of the Jeffersonians' achievement tracks so carefully the international events that were affecting and being affected by what went on within the borders of the United States. Adams was bucking an American tendency of long standing—the sense that America's special destiny could be worked out without foreign aid or hindrance."
This last observation is expanded by Wills:
"If one were to ask for the two leading figures in American history during the first sixteen years of the nineteenth century, the normal answer might be Jefferson and Madison. Adams, on the other hand, thinks they were Jefferson and Napoleon. Jefferson's actions were taken in the context of endless joustings with Bonaparte, or attempts to distance himself from him, or to escape the shadow of alleged collaboration with him. Even in electoral politics, he had always to cope with the charge of Francophile leanings toward Napoleon. The fate of Louisiana and the Floridas was dependent on Bonaparte. The War of 1812 was in large part prompted by his maneuverings to pit the Anglophone nations against each other. His power was continually felt or feared or flattered by the Jeffersonians. He, more than anyone or anything, forced Jefferson out of his original plan of disengagement from the world.
. . . .
To emphasize from the outset the importance of Napoleon to the Jeffersonian administrations, Adams introduces him in the History's first volume with a Miltonic flourish: "Most picturesque of all figures in modern history, Napoleon Bonaparte, like Milton's Satan on his throne of state, although surrounded by a group of figures little less striking than himself, sat unapproachable on his bad eminence; or, when he moved, the dusky air felt an unusual weight"
Wills pivots from the importance of Napoleon to the American story to a comparison of Adams with his contemporary Leo Tolstoy, who also contends with Napoleon in his monumental War and Peace (although Wills notes, there is no evidence that Adams had read War and Peace). Will writes:
"To say that Jefferson and Napoleon are the contending giants in Adams's History is not, oddly enough, to say that he is writing "great man" history. These two are like Napoleon and his Russian rival, General Kutuzov, in War and Peace, men doing they knew not what, borne along by their people, by their foes, by accident or by concatenating factors seen and unseen—so that they accomplish very often the exact opposite of what they intended. Napoleon abets or baffles Jefferson into policies that succeed despite Jefferson's will. But Napoleon, too, is baffled over and over while he acts with an illusion of control—in Egypt, in Saint Domingue, in Spain, in Russia, at the English Channel. Adams and Tolstoy—contemporaries who were writing about the same Napoleonic years—are the supreme ironists of their subject.
While working on the History in 1883, Adams reflected on how his leading figures were being led:
"In regard to them I am incessantly forced to devise excuses and apologies or to admit that no excuse will avail. I am at times almost sorry that I ever undertook to write their history, for they appear like mere grasshoppers, kicking and gesticulating in the middle of the Mississippi River. There is no possibility of reconciling their theories with their acts, or their extraordinary foreign policy with dignity ... My own conclusion is that history is simply social development along the lines of weakest resistance, and that in most cases the line of weakest resistance is found as unconsciously by society as by water. ""
As Wills notes, there is an irony here with both Adams and Tolstoy, both focus on a "great man" (Napoleon) but seems him only a conduit. Wills elucidates:
"Why, with this view of things, do Adams and Tolstoy dwell on their respective leading figures? Tolstoy answers that some men are better fitted to be the instruments of "the unseen hand" of history. They are used because they are usable. Napoleon was a force field in which all the hopes and angers and fears of the French Revolution, and resistance to it, and its aftermath, played themselves out. Men followed or resisted him because the same electrical currents were running through them, not because he was giving them the energies they lent him. In the same way, Adams's Jefferson is the only vehicle for a national vision of any sort in America. He offered "the line of least resistance" to forces breaking out of the old ideologies, out of the material constraints and mental blinders of the past.
And while both Adams and Tolstoy see providence in events, each has his own source: Tolstoy in the traditional providence of God's will and Jefferson in the "the people" and "the future." Thus the Jefferson of the revolutionary era could change course so drastically as Jefferson the president. This comparison of Adams and Tolstoy and their respective accounts lead Wills to his own insightful observations about the course of events:
But whatever one thinks of Adams's own views, anyone can learn from the construction of the History how to study the interplay of the many factors—national and international interests, personal and impersonal influences, planned and unplanned events—that go into a period of great social change. Why and how did the Jeffersonians make a nation? Because they had to. They could not make or maintain a government fitted to their time without doing so. Their own acts and those prompting or responding to their acts insensibly but irresistibly bore them along. That is why Adams is right to see continuity between the Jefferson and the Madison administrations, all of it the work of the Jeffersonians. Party-making (with patronage, the Twelfth Amendment, the war on the judiciary), war-making (with Tripoli or with England), the supplanting of state militias with a standing professional army, territorial expansion achieved or attempted (in Louisiana, Florida, or Canada), a vigorous campaign of internal improvements, a central financial system, intellectual and technological innovations, a religious tolerance across regional boundaries—all these worked together in nation-making.
But literally uncountable agencies were also necessary to the unforeseen result. To identify many of these factors is not to know them all or have one binding explanation for the outcome. Tolstoy's novel moves on many levels, with a highly personal story to tell, but it reminds us that much will never be told because much will never be known:
"The more deeply we search out the causes [of a war], the more of them we discover; and every cause, and even a whole class of causes taken separately, strikes us as being equally true in itself, and equally deceptive through its insignificance in comparison with the immensity of the result, and its inability to produce (without all the other causes that concurred with it) the effect that followed.8 This is the irony of history as Adams traces it. It tells us how the Jeffersonians wrought better than they knew while they thought they were doing something else. In the end, they made a nation." [War and Peace, 688.]
This is the irony of history as Adams traces it. It tells us how the Jeffersonians wrought better than they knew while they thought they were doing something else. In the end, they made a nation."
After this mediation on history, Wills concludes with some pertinent observations on American politics. First, he describes the lingering desire to divide Americans into "Jeffersonians" and "Hamiltonians," although the History establishes that "the Jeffersonian era" described in the History effectively erased such this distinction. Wills effectively mocks his contemporaries who still attempt to deploy this simple binary today. Second, and of special note, we have our infatuation with the Founders:
"The Founders have the air of demigods. Such piety has, of course, prompted revisionist attempts to bring the idols back down to our level, but they float magically back up again. . . . [The approval of the Founders] is the seal of approval endlessly sought. We feel that we not only honor but need the Founding Fathers. Without them we become illegitimate children."
We are always seeking their approval (as if they could grant it from the grave). Thus we are fed ideas of "original meaning," "strict construction," and other such nostrums of contemporary conservatives. Wills uses no less a personage than James Madison--the single most important figure in the drafting of the Constitution and one of the authors of The Federalist--to take down this nonsense:
"Madison, who drew up the rough draft of the document [the Constitution] but disagreed with key portions of its final promulgation, said that it was a first effort that should be "liquidated" (clarified) in practice. It was like a blueprint that should be a guide but not a prison to contractors working from it. In Federalist No. 37, he criticizes what we know as "fundamentalist" readings of the Bible to attack fundamentalist readings of the Constitution:
"All new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications. Besides, the obscurity arising from the complexity of objects, and the imperfection of the human faculties, the medium through which the conceptions of men are conveyed to each other, adds a fresh embarrassment [obstacle]. The use of words is to express ideas. Perspecuity therefore requires not only that the ideas should be distinctly formed, but that they should be expressed by words distinctly and exclusively appropriated to them. But no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea, or so correct as not to include many equivocally denoting different ideas. Hence it must happen that, however accurately objects may be discriminated in themselves, and however accurately the discrimination may be considered, the definition of them may be rendered inaccurate by the inaccuracy of the terms in which it is delivered. And its unavoidable inaccuracy must be greater or less, according to the complexity and novelty of the objects defined. When the Almighty himself condescends to address mankind in their own language, his meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful, by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated. Here then are three causes of vague and incorrect definitions: indistinctness of the object, imperfection of the organ of conception, inadequateness of the vehicle of ideas. Any one of these must produce a certain degree of obscurity. The convention, in delineating the boundary between the Federal and State jurisdictions, must have experienced the full effect of them all."
Thus, as Wills argues, what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" in 1790 (for instance) must be given a newer (and better) reading based on contemporary standards (and yes, our idea of what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" for crimes is better than theirs). That we can (and must) "misread" the Constitution was given its greatest model by Lincoln's "misreading" of the Declaration's statement that "all men are created equal." Jefferson never meant to include slaves or women by his statement, but the progress of the republic--a moral progress--demanded this "misreading." Wills concludes this portion of his argument with this conclusion:
"This or that. Either-or. Adams says both-neither. History is far more complex than the interplay of two (or many) ideologies. Chance, mistakes, opportunism, progress, reassessments, forgetfulness—all of them and more concatenate something less neat than anyone envisaged.
. . . .
Read the remainder of my review @ https://sngthoughts.blogspot.com/2021...
Wrong.
I can't "dip into" Garry Wills. There are few living authors of whom I've read--and re-read--so much. I was like a fish thinking I'd just take a nibble of that juicy worm and avoid the hook. No way with this expert angler of readers. And as I read and quickly realized that I wasn't going to read just a portion of this work, I also realized that I was really getting a twofer by doing so: extended quotes of Henry Adams along with a guided tour from Wills. Indeed, as Wills explains, the book serves as a mini-biography of Adams and a guided tour of Adams's great work, The History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (1801-1817), originally published in 1889 and1891 and consisting of nine volumes. Is this long venture worth it? Wills describes Adams's work here as ""the greatest prose masterpiece of non-fiction in America in the 19th century." And as to Wills, I'll venture the opinion that he's one of the outstanding prose stylists of the later 20th and early 21st century America, as well as serving as one of our most astute contemporary political observers and historians (among other achievements). This is a perfect match.
The first main contention Wills argues is that History is misread (if read at all) and overshadowed by Adam's The Education of Henry Adams (written in 1906 although not published until 1918). Wills describes The Education as a"world-weary and pessimistic view of the nation and its politics." But the History was written by Adams when he was in his forties and reveals "a man optimistic, progressive, and nationalistic, instead of one detached, arch, and pessimistic [compared to the author of The Education]. Even the prose begins to look different, more energetic, flexible, and engaged, less mannered and self-conscious." Wills also shatters the contention, surprisingly wide-spread, that Adams was out to defend the honor of his great-grandfather John Adams and grandfather John Quincy Adams. Not so. Adams wasn't keen on his grandfather or his New England heritage, nor was he sour about Jefferson. Finally, historians who know better often read only the opening, which consists of a social history of the United States in 1800. While some may praise this part of the work as a pioneering effort of social history, they ignore the remainder. But such a limited reading, as Wills describes it, consists of "the chrysalis without the butterfly, the windup without the pitch." With these three misconceptions dispatched, Wills then walks the reader through Adams's History and related works (biographies of Albert Gallatin, John Randolph, and an unpublished biography of Aaron Burr).
Early on Wills alerts the reader that because of Adams's ability as a stylist that he'd quote Adams at length and frequently. This allows the reader to appreciate the basis of Wills's assessment of Adams's skill as a stylist, and the reader also comes to appreciate Adams as a keen observer of politics (even remotely in time). Will devotes as a chapter to each of the nine volumes of the History, thus providing a history lesson along with an assessment of what Adams accomplishes. But it is near the conclusion the book that Wills comes to reflect on the project as a whole the reader strikes the richest vein of observations and assessments.
As to the history itself, Wills agrees with Adams about the significance of the Jeffersonian reign (which includes Madison's two terms). He writes:
"ADAMS HAS TOLD a dramatic story in his nine volumes—how a nation stagnating at the end of Federalist rule shook itself awake and struck off boldly in new directions in the first sixteen years of the Jeffersonians' rule. In one way, this picture corresponds with accepted notions. Jefferson had, after all, promised a "second revolution." But his aim was initially a conservative one—to return to the original Revolution, which had been betrayed by the Federalists. He would draw back from the world, hobble federal power, let states and merchants conduct their own affairs. He promised to be even more wary of foreign entanglements than President Washington had been. He would recall embassies, put the navy to sleep, get rid of all taxes but customs duties, and give himself little to do. Adams agrees that there was, indeed, a second revolution—just not the one Jefferson thought he would be conducting. Yet he gives Jefferson the credit for aspiring to a new revolution, whatever its shape. Jefferson did not betray his principles in riding these new energies. It just proved impossible to return to the days of the first revolution, whether that was conceived in Federalist or Republican terms.
. . . .
Politics had moved on. Old political alignments no longer applied when the New Englander John Quincy Adams was serving as secretary of state to the Virginia president James Monroe, and when a Connecticut Supreme Court justice like Joseph Story wrote opinions indistinguishable from those of the Virginia chief justice John Marshall."
Wills also describes the multiple feats of historical accomplishment and unique insights that Adams reveals in his work:
"What sets Adams's History apart, in its own time and in ours? There are a number of original features. It turns upside down the previous consensus on the period covered, so drastically that many have missed the point of the History entirely—which is not that Republicans became Federalists in office, but that they led a breakout from both ideologies. Adams brings to bear on his daring thesis many kinds of evidence, archival and cultural, that had not before been so deftly interwoven. The book also thinks internationally while telling a national tale. No other general account of the Jeffersonians' achievement tracks so carefully the international events that were affecting and being affected by what went on within the borders of the United States. Adams was bucking an American tendency of long standing—the sense that America's special destiny could be worked out without foreign aid or hindrance."
This last observation is expanded by Wills:
"If one were to ask for the two leading figures in American history during the first sixteen years of the nineteenth century, the normal answer might be Jefferson and Madison. Adams, on the other hand, thinks they were Jefferson and Napoleon. Jefferson's actions were taken in the context of endless joustings with Bonaparte, or attempts to distance himself from him, or to escape the shadow of alleged collaboration with him. Even in electoral politics, he had always to cope with the charge of Francophile leanings toward Napoleon. The fate of Louisiana and the Floridas was dependent on Bonaparte. The War of 1812 was in large part prompted by his maneuverings to pit the Anglophone nations against each other. His power was continually felt or feared or flattered by the Jeffersonians. He, more than anyone or anything, forced Jefferson out of his original plan of disengagement from the world.
. . . .
To emphasize from the outset the importance of Napoleon to the Jeffersonian administrations, Adams introduces him in the History's first volume with a Miltonic flourish: "Most picturesque of all figures in modern history, Napoleon Bonaparte, like Milton's Satan on his throne of state, although surrounded by a group of figures little less striking than himself, sat unapproachable on his bad eminence; or, when he moved, the dusky air felt an unusual weight"
Wills pivots from the importance of Napoleon to the American story to a comparison of Adams with his contemporary Leo Tolstoy, who also contends with Napoleon in his monumental War and Peace (although Wills notes, there is no evidence that Adams had read War and Peace). Will writes:
"To say that Jefferson and Napoleon are the contending giants in Adams's History is not, oddly enough, to say that he is writing "great man" history. These two are like Napoleon and his Russian rival, General Kutuzov, in War and Peace, men doing they knew not what, borne along by their people, by their foes, by accident or by concatenating factors seen and unseen—so that they accomplish very often the exact opposite of what they intended. Napoleon abets or baffles Jefferson into policies that succeed despite Jefferson's will. But Napoleon, too, is baffled over and over while he acts with an illusion of control—in Egypt, in Saint Domingue, in Spain, in Russia, at the English Channel. Adams and Tolstoy—contemporaries who were writing about the same Napoleonic years—are the supreme ironists of their subject.
While working on the History in 1883, Adams reflected on how his leading figures were being led:
"In regard to them I am incessantly forced to devise excuses and apologies or to admit that no excuse will avail. I am at times almost sorry that I ever undertook to write their history, for they appear like mere grasshoppers, kicking and gesticulating in the middle of the Mississippi River. There is no possibility of reconciling their theories with their acts, or their extraordinary foreign policy with dignity ... My own conclusion is that history is simply social development along the lines of weakest resistance, and that in most cases the line of weakest resistance is found as unconsciously by society as by water. ""
As Wills notes, there is an irony here with both Adams and Tolstoy, both focus on a "great man" (Napoleon) but seems him only a conduit. Wills elucidates:
"Why, with this view of things, do Adams and Tolstoy dwell on their respective leading figures? Tolstoy answers that some men are better fitted to be the instruments of "the unseen hand" of history. They are used because they are usable. Napoleon was a force field in which all the hopes and angers and fears of the French Revolution, and resistance to it, and its aftermath, played themselves out. Men followed or resisted him because the same electrical currents were running through them, not because he was giving them the energies they lent him. In the same way, Adams's Jefferson is the only vehicle for a national vision of any sort in America. He offered "the line of least resistance" to forces breaking out of the old ideologies, out of the material constraints and mental blinders of the past.
And while both Adams and Tolstoy see providence in events, each has his own source: Tolstoy in the traditional providence of God's will and Jefferson in the "the people" and "the future." Thus the Jefferson of the revolutionary era could change course so drastically as Jefferson the president. This comparison of Adams and Tolstoy and their respective accounts lead Wills to his own insightful observations about the course of events:
But whatever one thinks of Adams's own views, anyone can learn from the construction of the History how to study the interplay of the many factors—national and international interests, personal and impersonal influences, planned and unplanned events—that go into a period of great social change. Why and how did the Jeffersonians make a nation? Because they had to. They could not make or maintain a government fitted to their time without doing so. Their own acts and those prompting or responding to their acts insensibly but irresistibly bore them along. That is why Adams is right to see continuity between the Jefferson and the Madison administrations, all of it the work of the Jeffersonians. Party-making (with patronage, the Twelfth Amendment, the war on the judiciary), war-making (with Tripoli or with England), the supplanting of state militias with a standing professional army, territorial expansion achieved or attempted (in Louisiana, Florida, or Canada), a vigorous campaign of internal improvements, a central financial system, intellectual and technological innovations, a religious tolerance across regional boundaries—all these worked together in nation-making.
But literally uncountable agencies were also necessary to the unforeseen result. To identify many of these factors is not to know them all or have one binding explanation for the outcome. Tolstoy's novel moves on many levels, with a highly personal story to tell, but it reminds us that much will never be told because much will never be known:
"The more deeply we search out the causes [of a war], the more of them we discover; and every cause, and even a whole class of causes taken separately, strikes us as being equally true in itself, and equally deceptive through its insignificance in comparison with the immensity of the result, and its inability to produce (without all the other causes that concurred with it) the effect that followed.8 This is the irony of history as Adams traces it. It tells us how the Jeffersonians wrought better than they knew while they thought they were doing something else. In the end, they made a nation." [War and Peace, 688.]
This is the irony of history as Adams traces it. It tells us how the Jeffersonians wrought better than they knew while they thought they were doing something else. In the end, they made a nation."
After this mediation on history, Wills concludes with some pertinent observations on American politics. First, he describes the lingering desire to divide Americans into "Jeffersonians" and "Hamiltonians," although the History establishes that "the Jeffersonian era" described in the History effectively erased such this distinction. Wills effectively mocks his contemporaries who still attempt to deploy this simple binary today. Second, and of special note, we have our infatuation with the Founders:
"The Founders have the air of demigods. Such piety has, of course, prompted revisionist attempts to bring the idols back down to our level, but they float magically back up again. . . . [The approval of the Founders] is the seal of approval endlessly sought. We feel that we not only honor but need the Founding Fathers. Without them we become illegitimate children."
We are always seeking their approval (as if they could grant it from the grave). Thus we are fed ideas of "original meaning," "strict construction," and other such nostrums of contemporary conservatives. Wills uses no less a personage than James Madison--the single most important figure in the drafting of the Constitution and one of the authors of The Federalist--to take down this nonsense:
"Madison, who drew up the rough draft of the document [the Constitution] but disagreed with key portions of its final promulgation, said that it was a first effort that should be "liquidated" (clarified) in practice. It was like a blueprint that should be a guide but not a prison to contractors working from it. In Federalist No. 37, he criticizes what we know as "fundamentalist" readings of the Bible to attack fundamentalist readings of the Constitution:
"All new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications. Besides, the obscurity arising from the complexity of objects, and the imperfection of the human faculties, the medium through which the conceptions of men are conveyed to each other, adds a fresh embarrassment [obstacle]. The use of words is to express ideas. Perspecuity therefore requires not only that the ideas should be distinctly formed, but that they should be expressed by words distinctly and exclusively appropriated to them. But no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea, or so correct as not to include many equivocally denoting different ideas. Hence it must happen that, however accurately objects may be discriminated in themselves, and however accurately the discrimination may be considered, the definition of them may be rendered inaccurate by the inaccuracy of the terms in which it is delivered. And its unavoidable inaccuracy must be greater or less, according to the complexity and novelty of the objects defined. When the Almighty himself condescends to address mankind in their own language, his meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful, by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated. Here then are three causes of vague and incorrect definitions: indistinctness of the object, imperfection of the organ of conception, inadequateness of the vehicle of ideas. Any one of these must produce a certain degree of obscurity. The convention, in delineating the boundary between the Federal and State jurisdictions, must have experienced the full effect of them all."
Thus, as Wills argues, what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" in 1790 (for instance) must be given a newer (and better) reading based on contemporary standards (and yes, our idea of what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" for crimes is better than theirs). That we can (and must) "misread" the Constitution was given its greatest model by Lincoln's "misreading" of the Declaration's statement that "all men are created equal." Jefferson never meant to include slaves or women by his statement, but the progress of the republic--a moral progress--demanded this "misreading." Wills concludes this portion of his argument with this conclusion:
"This or that. Either-or. Adams says both-neither. History is far more complex than the interplay of two (or many) ideologies. Chance, mistakes, opportunism, progress, reassessments, forgetfulness—all of them and more concatenate something less neat than anyone envisaged.
. . . .
Read the remainder of my review @ https://sngthoughts.blogspot.com/2021...
November 21, 2023
Garry Wills is one of my favorite scholars, as he is well-versed in both American history and in the history of the Catholic Church.
I came across this book because I find the Adams family -- so prominent from the second half of the 18th century until into the 20th century -- and the events of those earlier days of the Republic fascinating.
As I mentioned in my recent review of Henry Adams' weird autobiography that leaves some key things out -- his "The Education of Henry Adams" -- anyone wanting to know more about this truly interesting man would do well to consult the recent biography of Adams by David Brown, "The Last American Aristocrat."
However, this book by Wills comes in, I think, at a close second. While it does not attempt to be a complete biography, in its first half we get a truncated view of Adams' life and career, especially concerning his interests and abilities as an historian. Although he wasn't the first American to attempt a history of the United States, he was one of the very first to employ modern historical methods, including deeply diving in to primary sources for a much fuller understanding of all that was at play at a given time.
The second half of Wills' book, in fact, focuses in depth on what Wills considers Adams' historical masterpiece, the several thousand page multi-volume work "History of the United States of America During the Administration of Thomas Jefferson" (four volumes) and "History of the United States of America During the Administrations of James Madison" (five volumes).
It is because of Wills' high praise of Adams' writing skills and historical narrative ability -- including his painting of unforgettable word portraits of so many key figures in those years -- that I purchased used copies of those histories (thoughtfully compiled by "The Library of America").
Although the great-grandson of the first President Adams, who was a Federalist and who disagreed with Jefferson on a great many things, Henry Adams actually praises the accomplishments -- many of them unintended -- that occurred during Jefferson's and Madison's terms of office as necessary to help the new republic truly become a nation.
I have to say, though, that I found his portrait of Jefferson to be frequently appalling, for I had not previously known how damned devious, even two-faced, Jefferson could be. Like too many of our current politicians, Jefferson, too, frequently portrayed events and persons in stark black/white terms. Also, for all of his political experience and wisdom, he fared ill when attempting "clever" diplomacy in the same arena as the much more experienced foreign ministers of France and Great Britain.
If these histories by Adams interest you at all, I would advise reading Wills' book before purchasing them as it will help you decide whether you wish to invest the considerable time required to plow through them. At some point in the future I will attempt this very thing and, if I live long enough to accomplish it, I will write a separate review of them.
Wills notes, somewhat sadly, that these monumental histories are seldom read anymore. I concur with that fact because even while in graduate school I did not once encounter Adams the historian. (Although it is also true that even if I had, I do not know how I would have carved out the time necessary to plow through so many pages of fairly small print.
I came across this book because I find the Adams family -- so prominent from the second half of the 18th century until into the 20th century -- and the events of those earlier days of the Republic fascinating.
As I mentioned in my recent review of Henry Adams' weird autobiography that leaves some key things out -- his "The Education of Henry Adams" -- anyone wanting to know more about this truly interesting man would do well to consult the recent biography of Adams by David Brown, "The Last American Aristocrat."
However, this book by Wills comes in, I think, at a close second. While it does not attempt to be a complete biography, in its first half we get a truncated view of Adams' life and career, especially concerning his interests and abilities as an historian. Although he wasn't the first American to attempt a history of the United States, he was one of the very first to employ modern historical methods, including deeply diving in to primary sources for a much fuller understanding of all that was at play at a given time.
The second half of Wills' book, in fact, focuses in depth on what Wills considers Adams' historical masterpiece, the several thousand page multi-volume work "History of the United States of America During the Administration of Thomas Jefferson" (four volumes) and "History of the United States of America During the Administrations of James Madison" (five volumes).
It is because of Wills' high praise of Adams' writing skills and historical narrative ability -- including his painting of unforgettable word portraits of so many key figures in those years -- that I purchased used copies of those histories (thoughtfully compiled by "The Library of America").
Although the great-grandson of the first President Adams, who was a Federalist and who disagreed with Jefferson on a great many things, Henry Adams actually praises the accomplishments -- many of them unintended -- that occurred during Jefferson's and Madison's terms of office as necessary to help the new republic truly become a nation.
I have to say, though, that I found his portrait of Jefferson to be frequently appalling, for I had not previously known how damned devious, even two-faced, Jefferson could be. Like too many of our current politicians, Jefferson, too, frequently portrayed events and persons in stark black/white terms. Also, for all of his political experience and wisdom, he fared ill when attempting "clever" diplomacy in the same arena as the much more experienced foreign ministers of France and Great Britain.
If these histories by Adams interest you at all, I would advise reading Wills' book before purchasing them as it will help you decide whether you wish to invest the considerable time required to plow through them. At some point in the future I will attempt this very thing and, if I live long enough to accomplish it, I will write a separate review of them.
Wills notes, somewhat sadly, that these monumental histories are seldom read anymore. I concur with that fact because even while in graduate school I did not once encounter Adams the historian. (Although it is also true that even if I had, I do not know how I would have carved out the time necessary to plow through so many pages of fairly small print.
October 24, 2024
This analysis of Henry Adams “The History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison” was both interesting and very enjoyable for US history geeks.
It inspired me to be slightly optimistic about our future. If the U.S. government can survive the treason of a vice president (Aaron Burr); the incompetent administration of economic and foreign affairs by a president (Thomas Jefferson) and the dereliction of duty and traitorous acts of its most senior military leadership (Major General James Wilkinson), it has a reasonable chance of surviving whatever chaos comes its way over the next four years.
I may even end up reading the Library of America’s two volume edition of Adam’s history.
It inspired me to be slightly optimistic about our future. If the U.S. government can survive the treason of a vice president (Aaron Burr); the incompetent administration of economic and foreign affairs by a president (Thomas Jefferson) and the dereliction of duty and traitorous acts of its most senior military leadership (Major General James Wilkinson), it has a reasonable chance of surviving whatever chaos comes its way over the next four years.
I may even end up reading the Library of America’s two volume edition of Adam’s history.
October 16, 2017
This book is basically one part biography of Henry Adams, the great grandson of John Adams (and grandson of John Quincy Adams), and two parts summary of Henry's 9-volume history of the US. It's a bit of an intellectual biography, but essentially pushes the perspective the 9-volume history is vastly undervalued...I would suggest getting this from the public library if you're interested in reading it.
January 23, 2019
This was surprisingly readable but I don't recommend picking it up just for fun. The chapters were broken into sections so when I got confused or bored I knew something else more interesting would come soon. That said, this is a VERY meta book with present-day historian Wills writing about ca. 1900 historian Henry Adams writing a history about ca. 1800 presidents with comparisons to other historic historians along the way.
January 31, 2019
Wills is never not interesting, but I wasn't crazy about the way he structured this book and found the first third (a more or less straightforward biography of Henry Adams) much more compelling than the two sections dealing with his interpretation of Adams's History of the United States; at times it felt as though Wills had forgotten entirely about Adams and was writing his own history.
May 9, 2022
A book about a book. Every book should have its biography written.
November 30, 2022
An enjoyable read. Looking forward to reading his Histories.
December 9, 2023
Henry Adams was capable of stitching together the history of past human events using the needle of wit.
May 21, 2025
An very well done history of the presidency of Jefferson and Madison that shows how leaders can make mistakes and yet foster progress. He shows the complexity of leadership skills versus events that control the behavior of leaders.
Read
February 5, 2009Garry Wills is the great elucidator. Whether as biographer, essayist, or parser of historical documents, Wills has an enviable ability to aggrandize the individual. It's a skill that brought him the Pulitzer Prize for Lincoln at Gettysburg and has made his name a familiar byline on the best-seller lists with works like Inventing America and Why I Am a Catholic. Critics greet his work with mixed reviews, less for his skill as a writer than for his choice of subject. In his attempt to winnow down Adams's gargantuan history for the general reader, some critics feel Wills has produced an "elevated Cliffs Notes" guide. If that's the case, maybe it's worth considering that even educated adults need a helping hand through the many great books they'll never have enough time to read.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
June 9, 2015
Very good recap of Adam's classic multi-volume "History of the United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison." Wills de-revisionizes the historian's viewpoint of Adams that he was an apologist for the Presidents in his family and for New England, and anti-Republican and anti-Southern.
Wills show how Adams, instead of attacking the Republican Virginians Jefferson and Madison or clairming that they discredited themselves by turning into Federalists, traced the United States in their hands growing beyond those labels into a "nation".
And Wills reminds us of the quality of Adam's writing, his groundbreaking archival research, and his international focus. Many historians of the period, especially of the events leading up to and during the War of 1812, focus just on events at home, while Adams shows through his deep archival research in England, France, and Spain that many of these events were driven by events abroad.
Wills show how Adams, instead of attacking the Republican Virginians Jefferson and Madison or clairming that they discredited themselves by turning into Federalists, traced the United States in their hands growing beyond those labels into a "nation".
And Wills reminds us of the quality of Adam's writing, his groundbreaking archival research, and his international focus. Many historians of the period, especially of the events leading up to and during the War of 1812, focus just on events at home, while Adams shows through his deep archival research in England, France, and Spain that many of these events were driven by events abroad.
March 14, 2009
Garry Wills is a wonderful writer and this is an very interesting subject. It is really about Henry Adams' multi-volume history of America as much as (or more than) the history itself. Henry Adams was at the forefront of the writing of history--going back to the sources rather than making it up. [I still think most of it is made up, but that's besides the point.:]
Seriously, we went to war in 1812 because we (James Madison) supported Napoleon against England and thought we could take over Canada. This is something you never learn in school.
This is a book I'll read again because it is intersting, chock full of information, and needed to be read more closely than one can on the F Train.
Seriously, we went to war in 1812 because we (James Madison) supported Napoleon against England and thought we could take over Canada. This is something you never learn in school.
This is a book I'll read again because it is intersting, chock full of information, and needed to be read more closely than one can on the F Train.
August 28, 2012
The first (and best) part of this book, is an essay arguing that Henry Adams is over praised for his autobiography, written when he was a crotchety old man. Instead, Wills praises Adams's nine-volume history of the Jefferson and Madison administrations, and notes Henry's admiration for the Southern Democrats at the expense of his own presidential ancestors. (Wills himself is infatuated with the Virginia dynasty and foolishly dismisses New England as a backwater, which was in fact the nation's intellectual and industrial leader in the decades prior to the Civil War.)
Wills spends the rest of the book in a chapter-by-chapter précis of Adams nine volumes. Granted, it seems unlikely that many people have the time to read the original, but Wills' regurgitation becomes tiresome.
Wills spends the rest of the book in a chapter-by-chapter précis of Adams nine volumes. Granted, it seems unlikely that many people have the time to read the original, but Wills' regurgitation becomes tiresome.
June 28, 2008
This was a good book with plenty of interestign details about America, history teaching in the US and Henry Adams himself. I learned quite a bit while reading this book. The books biggest problem was it's concept of redeeming Henry Adams does not really make for entertaining reading. Wills succeeds in proving his thesis, but it does get very repetitive when he is compelled to bash Adams critics. I'd rather have been reading more about the historical points than tally all the ways in which Adams critics were wrong.
December 13, 2010
This was tough: both Henry Adams and Garry Wills are analytical thinkers and writers - and much smarter than I am. In addition I am not a big fan of military history, of which there was an abundance. Having groused about all that, I now declare that i was truly immersed in Wills' analyses of Adams' multi-volune histories and Admas himself. I finished with even more interest and appreciation of Adams that I previously enjoyed.
April 23, 2007
When I talk to other people who teach U.S. History we always complain about the time spent on teaching about the War of 1812. Wills explains why this era is interesting and significant. Plus he gives us insight into the mind of one of the first great American historians and a member of one of the first great American families.
July 8, 2008
Okay, I couldn't get past the first chapter. It lost me at, " But Adams was aware that he was mired in a pretenious muddle of families, of whom the Adamses were the last and the least". It went on and on and on and on like that, Poor Henry Adams...until I closed the book.
December 5, 2008
The chapter "Boston Historians" is an excellent one for those interested in the evolution of historical thought and methods.
April 21, 2016
Very engaging read. Others have already commented well enough. I'll read it again in five years. Really held my attention.
Read
February 11, 2016historian for historian's sake
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