Author Description
'Every generalisation that we settled forty years ago, is abandoned' As a journalist, historian and novelist born into a family that included two past presidents of the United States, Henry Adams was constantly focused on the American experiment. An immediate bestseller awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1919, his The Education of Henry Adams (1918) recounts his own and the country's education from 1838, the year of his birth, to 1905, incorporating the Civil War, capitalist expansion and the growth of the United States as a world power. Exploring America as both a success and a failure, contradiction was the very impetus that compelled Adams to write the Education, in which he was also able to voice his deep scepticism about mankind's power to control the direction of history. Written with immense wit and irony, reassembling the past while glimpsing the future, Adams's vision expresses what Henry James declared the `complex fate' to be an American, and remains one of the most compelling works of American autobiography today. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This work investigates the fundamental question of how an individual, born into the American political elite, reconciles the rapid transformation of the United States from a traditional agrarian society into a complex, chaotic modern power. Henry Adams, a historian and descendant of two U.S. presidents, utilizes his own life as a case study to examine the failure of traditional education to prepare citizens for the accelerating pace of technological and social change. He argues that the modern world has become increasingly unintelligible, rendering the values of his ancestors obsolete in the face of industrialization and global shifts.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- A detailed historical account of American life from 1838 to 1905.
- Philosophical reflections on the impact of the Civil War and capitalist expansion.
- A critique of the American political system and the limitations of historical progress.
Scope Limits
- The text does not provide a comprehensive biography of the Adams family, focusing instead on the author's internal intellectual development.
- It does not offer a prescriptive solution to the societal problems identified, remaining largely analytical and skeptical.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars and critics frequently identify this text as a foundational work of American intellectual history, noted for its profound irony and stylistic complexity. Readers often observe that the prose is dense and requires a strong grasp of 19th-century American political context to fully appreciate the author's arguments.
Page Count:
538
Publication Date:
1999-01-01
ISBN-10:
0191611026
ISBN-13:
9780191611025
Philosophy
Autobiography
Memoir
American History
English & College Success
19th Century
United States
Historians biography
English
Biography Autobiography
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