Democracy

By Henry Adams

Will update

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheba Blake Publishing
• Release date: May 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312893870

Henry Adams

Henry Adams (1838-1918) was an American historian and memoirist. Born in Boston, Adams was the grandson of statesman and lawyer John Quincy Adams on his father’s side. Through his mother, he was related to the Brooks family of wealthy merchants. Adams graduated from Harvard University in 1858 before traveling through Europe on a grand tour. Upon returning in 1860, he attempted to pursue a career in law but soon found himself working as a journalist, first in Boston and then in London, where he was an anonymous correspondent for The New York Times while his father served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Lincoln. In 1868, Adams settled in Washington, DC, where he earned a reputation as a journalist against political corruption. By 1870, he embarked on a brief career as a professor of medieval history at Harvard, a position from which he would retire in 1877 to devote himself to his writing. In addition to his lauded nine-volume History of the United States of America (1801-1817) (1889-1891), Adams wrote the novels Democracy: An American Novel (1880) and Esther (1884). In 1907, his memoir The Education of Henry Adams appeared in print in a small, private edition. A decade later, just after his death at the age of 80, it found wider publication and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Recognized as an astute observer of cultural and historical change, Adams remains a controversial figure for his antisemitic views.

Reviews for Democracy

[denmoir · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like Jane Austen's novels this is about society, relationships between men and women and the mistakes we often make in our judgements of people. Imagine Pride and Prejucide with a fair dose of politics and an exploration of power and corruption.

[lucybrown_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a very entertining novel by the author of The Education of Henry Adams. Adams, grandson of J. Q. Adams is the perfect author to examine the subjects of love and power in the Capitol.

[jbd1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An incisive and amusing roman à clef, written by Henry Adams and published anonymously in 1880. It's amazing how relevant much of the story still feels, even 125 years on. Political intrigue, personal relationships, and societal tensions - you'll find 'em all here in this delightful satire.

[markbstephenson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A revealing portrait of political pressure in Washington D.C. at the turn of the 19th century. Very entertaining even now.

[aprille_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When I was in Washington, DC for a conference, I picked up this novel which was written anonymously by Henry Adams (though some say it was his wife). They didn’t discover that he had written it until they found references to it in his papers after he died. It was an expose of the corruption in Washington about twenty years after the Civil War. The blurbs on the back are from Maureen Dowd and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. who both say that it is one of the best novels about Washington ever written.It is the story of a smart, rich, beautiful young widow, who comes to Washington because she is bored with New York. She is completely cerebral, high minded and motivated by her sense of duty, but becomes caught up in the quest for power which an able but morally bankrupt Senator makes a bid to convince her to be his wife.I think there is something of the subtlety of the human interactions which I didn’t get in this book. There are particular shadings of behavior and explorations of the edges of what is morally acceptable which are not as familiar to me as they would have been to a contemporary reader. For example, in one scene, the new president comes to town and sits in state and shakes the hand of everyone who comes to visit him in the White House. The main character attends, but is disgusted by this “aping of monarchy.” She feels that the president and his lady feel obligated to stand there for hours, dumbly shaking the hands of hundreds of visitors. She also strikes up an animosity with the president’s wife, apparently because she is too fashionable for the first lady’s taste. It seems rather vague.The most interesting scenes, to me, are the two excursions which the fashionable and powerful make together--the first to Mount Vernon, and the second to the home of Robert E. Lee in Arlington, Virginia, to see the cemetery there. The contemporary reactions to the myth of Washington and the painful memories of the Civil War were quite intriguing, and I think I should go back and read them, because I feel they probably share some resonances with each other which I didn’t fully receive the first time.