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Article: Re-education on Henry Adams.(Review)
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- June 4, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Improvement of the World: A Biography of Henry Adams: 1891-1918.
By Edward Chalfant.
Archon. 708 pp. $55.
Henry Adams liked to say that his pedigree and eighteenth-century upbringing had hobbled him in the races of the twentieth century. The scion of not just one but two Presidents of the United States--the second, John Adams, who helped formulate the principles of the Constitution, and the sixth, John Quincy Adams, who drafted the Monroe Doctrine--he had, as a young man, given every indication of being destined for an equally visible career of public service. During the Civil War, he was an indispensable aid to his father during the latter's tenure as Minister ...