Henry (Brooks) Adams

(1838–1918), son of the first Charles Francis Adams, was a historian and one of the most important authors and original thinkers of his time. Adams analyzed what Darwin's evolutionary theory implied for the future of society. In his dynamic theory of history he concluded that society, instead of moving toward perfection, was subject to dissipation of energy and eventual exhaustion.

Adams' History of the United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison (9 volumes, 1889–91) remains a definitive analysis of the early years of American democracy. Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (1913; privately published in 1904) is a study of the medieval spirit in architecture and philosophy. His brilliant autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams (1918; privately published in 1906), was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1919. In these two books, Adams contrasts what he considered the unifying effect of religion on life in the 13th century with the disruptive effect of science on the modern mind and society.

Adams was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard in 1858. After studying in Germany, he was secretary to his father, who was minister to Great Britain, 1861–68. In 1870 Henry Adams became assistant professor of history at Harvard and editor of the North American Review. He resigned as editor in 1876 and as professor in 1877 and moved to Washington, D.C., to devote his time to writing. His wife's suicide in 1885 embittered his later years.

Adams' other writings include: The Life of Albert Gallatin (1879); The Works of Albert Gallatin (3 volumes, 1879); A Letter to American Teachers of History (1910); The Degradation of Democratic Dogma (1919). Democracy (anonymously published in 1880) is a novel.