( 13 reviews )
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Posted: Jul 4 2009
The Kindle edition of THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS conveniently provides the reader the opportunity to read one of the most fascinating autobiographies that deciphers the history in which Henry Adams lived. Originally printed privately in 1907 but published in 1918 and later earning a Pulitzer Prize and accolades as the world's great autobiographies, the book is a long conversation, which stretches limitless boundaries and eclipses various topics from the history of science that included geology and anthropology as well as the humanities, history, literature, and philosophy. But one will also see Adams's inner qualities as a self-reflective, intelligent and narcissistic man. Undoubtedly, Adams's narrative is a stark reflection of his life that was immensely enriched with history and buttressed between intellect and inquiry or so-called "galloping mind." With the mere fact that his great-grandfather was John Adams and his grandfather was John Quincy Adams, two of the most illustrious presidents in US history, and his father, Charles Francis Adams, served as President Lincoln's appointed American minister to the Court of St. James, there would be no escaping the political history that was engraved within his pedigree. Having lived throughout the nineteenth century and observing all aspects of history-in-the-making during the period of the Republic and the Gilded Age, Adams attempts to examine the most pivotal parts of history. However, as one reads, there is a somewhat limited and ambiguous quality of Adams's understanding of the East, which falls precisely under the category of the straight and narrow and highly romanticized and misconstrued. After reading THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS, one may see that learning is a never-ending cycle. Although parts of the book appear dated, there is plenty of food for thought within his narrative that shows how Adams's education clearly resonates the most pinnacle part of intellectual history that was the Enlightenment.
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Posted: Apr 18 2009
I may be the very first person to make this comparison, but this book reminds me of the play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead." In that play, the two title characters wander about the stage while great events are taking place, looking unsuccessfully for a role to play. By the end, of course, they are dead, and have learned nothing, influenced nothing, and contributed nothing. I could easily describe "The Education of Henry Adams" with the exact same words (substituting the singular Henry Adams for the plural Rosencrantz and Guildenstern). Adams did not intend the book to be a biography, and it certainly isn't, if only because it completely omits about twenty years of his life. And if it HAD been a biography, it would have been an unusually boring one, since he didn't lead a particularly interesting life. He didn't intend it to be a history book either, since he was not a close or first-hand observer of most of the significant historical events that occurred during his lifetime. The most important event during his lifetime was the Civil War, and he didn't even spend that time in the United States! Adams apparently intended this book to be a book about education, but if he had anything noteworthy to say on the subject, I certainly missed it - and I'm an educator! In fact, after relating almost every event he chose to describe in the book, he ends up saying something like, "This did nothing to contribute to my education." The last major event he talks about in the book is the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. After visiting the fair and seeing the prototypes of the new inventions that would dominate the social and technological changes in the developed world during the 20th century, he concludes that time has passed him by and that there will be no room for people like him in the future. The reader may well wonder why he didn't reach the same conclusion about the era in which he lived his life, since he seems to have stood outside the scene of action, puzzling over the meanings of the events. If your interest is 19th-century American history, there are scores of better books. If your interest is in biography, there are hundreds, and probably thousands, of better biographies. If your interest is education, almost any competently written book ever written on the subject will be more thought-provoking than this one is. And this is the greatest non-fiction book of the twentieth century? What on earth were people thinking?
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Posted: Nov 15 2008
I was first drawn into the book "The Education of Henry Adams" when Henry Adams wrote how he was led to "... more than once to sit at sunset on the steps of the Church of Santa Maria di Ara Coeli..." (page 91) Adams wanted to teach people how we can teach ourselves. He wanted to say that knowledge devoid of feeling is of little use and meaning. He said, towards the end of the book and towards the end of his life, "All the teacher could hope was to teach it reaction." Despite his willful, self-imposed criticism of his own inadequacies and failures, he succeeded brilliantly in teaching us how to achieve our own personal Annunciation, as he obviously experienced his, at sunset on the steps of the Church of Santa Maria di Ara Coeli.
