Henry Adams

Democracy: An American Novel (1880) is a novel by Henry Adams. Published anonymously, Democracy: An American Novel draws on Adams' experience as a political journalist in Washington, DC who worked to expose corruption in American government. Although fictional, the novel is viewed as a commentary on the presidential administrations of the 1870s and political atmospheres surrounding each. "For reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs. Lightfoot...

Many great artists have had at least intermittent doubts about their own abilities. But The Education of Henry Adams is surely one of the few masterpieces to issue directly from a raging inferiority complex. The author, to be sure, had bigger shoes to fill than most of us. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather were U.S. presidents. His father, a relative underachiever, scraped by as a member of Congress and ambassador to the Court of St. James....

John Randolph, known as John Randolph of Roanoke, represented Virginia in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and once famously stated, "I am an aristocrat. I love liberty, I hate equality." Ideal for history buffs, Henry Adams's biography of this prominent politician examines Randolph's tumultuous career and disdainfully covers his preference for Jeffersonian policies rather than the Federalist politics of Adams's own ancestors.

Thid unsurpassed work illuminates the unpopular, blunder-filled War of 1812.

The presidency of Thomas Jefferson began on March 4, 1801, when he was inaugurated as the third President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1809. In domestic affairs Jefferson sought to put the principles of republicanism into action. In foreign affairs, the major developments were the acquisition of the gigantic Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, an embargo against trade with both Great Britain and France, and worsening relations with...

From the Back Cover: Mont Saint Michel and Chartres is a record not of a literal journey but of a meditative journey across time and space into the medieval imagination. Using the architecture, sculpture, and stained glass of the two locales as a starting point, Adams breathes life into what others might see merely as monuments of a past civilization. With daring and inventive conceits, Adams looks at the ordinary people, places, and events in the...

Brilliant, captivating, and unforgettable memoirs from four of the greatest minds in American history.   Penned between 1771 and 1790 and published after his death, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is one of the most acclaimed and widely read personal histories ever written. From his youth as a printer's assistant working for his brother's Boston newspaper through his own publishing, writing, and military careers, his scientific experiments...