The Education of Henry Adams question

I think it's a fantastic book, but a very difficult one to appreciate, simply because Henry Adams's voice is so narrow and introspective. If you're halfway through, than you already have the gist: Adams meets all sorts of important people, and deals with all sorts of important arguments, and yet never feels himself to be truly "educated." There is a profoundly anarchic, fatalistic, aristocratic sensibility to the book--one foreign to most contemporary Americans, but one worth learning from all the same, I think. I have a bunch of my favorite quotes from the book, plus a link to my blog where I talk about the implicit anarchism of Adams's worldview, available on my Goodreads page.

I have tried many times to get through a chapter but after 3-4 pages put it down for something enjoyable. There are too many good books to read and be thankful that you didn't have to read it and get a grade for a sensesless effort. So many of the books that are on the "greatest" list are dreadful and nothing is really accomplished.

The Education of Henry Adams is on my list of books to re-read. I first read it as a senior undergrad in the '75-'76 academic year. It was a political theory course. In addition to Education of Henry Adams, we read Civilization and Its Discontents, The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and a few others. EOHA was our "conservative book".

It was a fluff course that I took to fill in my social science requirements. But these are good books and I would love to re-read them all.

I don't remember much from EOHA except that, if his intelligence was not so obvious, he would seem almost a crank.

I specifically plan to re-read EOHA because some friends have been busting my chops that I am a liberal. I think that I am an old-fashioned conservative and that they are radicals. So I am re-aquainting myself with some of the old conservative chestnuts to gain a sense of how right (or wrong) that I am.

I loved this book. It was long on my Gap List, and I'm so glad I finally got to it. As Brad says, Adams does come off as a bit of a crank, but that is because he wasn't writing the book as a literary exercise. He was one of those people born at a time, in a place, in a family, surrounded by certain people, prominent in affairs of lasting historical interest--and he happened to be brilliant by any standard. His friends wanted him to leave something for posterity (and themselves). His autobiography is simultaneously very personal and very guarded. He writes of himself in the third person and doesn't attempt to write a proper memoir.

The world is never wonderful enough for him. He is cynical and pessimistic despite his accomplishments. Life is a mystery, and his "education" can show him nothing. Yet he reveals himself to be a loyal and devoted friend, much loved by many people, a thoughtful patriot, and a dedicated teacher. Toward the end of his life, he is fascinated by science and stricken with profound grief--for those he loses one by one and for the uneducated life he shortly expects to leave behind.

I would not say that it is a literary masterpiece, and it does not offer the joyride of a good novel. But for anyone interested in that period of American history, this is a juicy piece of meditative reportage by one of the best men American politics has ever produced. It makes you want to beat some of the current lot over the head with it.

Personally, I loved the book, but if you'd like a hipper, more contemporary take on Henry Adams (and Henry James, for that matter) during the McKinley/T.Roosevelt/Phillipines years, you might want to try Gore Vidal's historical novel,Empire,which is a hoot, and the 4th in his Narratives of Empire series (if you discount "The golden age" which was a dry run at his later "Washington D.C.")
I'd highly recommend all of Gores books in this series. A lot of people only know him for his non-fiction essays, which is a shame, cause his historical novels are a helluva lot of fun, IMHO.

This is a very old post, but I enjoyed this book so I'll comment none the less. Henry Adams' life spanned most of the 19th Century. The century witnessed the most dynamic aspects of the industrial revolution, but more importantly it witnessed the changing of western culture from aristocratic to democratic. What made Adams' book wonderful was that he captured the essence of a lost aristocrat in a democratic world. All of his background and education were essentially useless because they were all geared to prepare him to be an aristocrat. He was an observant man and a good writer, so he captured his bewilderment in his book.

Another comparable book, written by a fabulous author, is "Memoirs of a superfluous man" by Albert J. Nock. It is similar in that it traces an observant and intelligent man's life through the changing times of the late 19th and early 20th century. In many ways it is far superior to 'The Education of Henry Adams', even if it is less well known.

This discussion has gone stale a while ago, but I have just stumbled upon it and thought I would add my own little tuppence worth of comment. Before reading 'The Education of Henry Adams' I read the wonderful biography of his great-grandfather, John Adams by David McCullough. Henry's recollections of his grandfather, Pres John Quincy Adams, especially the day when the grandfather accompanied him to school, were priceless and very moving. Also where he describes how "it was unusual for boys to sit behind a President grandfather [in church], and to read over his head the tablet in memory of a President great-grandfather, who had 'pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor' to secure the the independence of his country and so forth. . ."
All in all, well worth the effort.