The education of Henry Adams
an autobiography.
by Henry Adams · first published 1777
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The Education of Henry Adams is the autobiography of the Bostonian Henry Adams. As he approached his seventieth birthday when "the mind wakes to find itself looking blankly into the void of death," Adams wrote and privately printed 100 copies of his "Education", a reflection on the incredible events of the 19th century. Adams meditates on his sense of disorientation with the scientific and technological expansion over his lifetime. After his death the book was commercially published, going on to become a best-seller and to win the Pulitzer Prize.
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The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
on “Ask HN: Good books written before ~1900?” ↗…try to pull together diverse threads. The black magic article seems kinda interesting. But my personal taste in "meaning of life" stuff these days is more the free spirit and cutting judgements of "The Education of Henry Adams" than a heavy-handed ology of meaningness. I'm suspicious of how tidy all his little categories are, how little self-awareness is exemplified (as opposed to mentioned), the seeming lack of humor despite…
on “Meaningness” ↗…something breath-taking about far-reaching decisions being made by a young nation with only early 19th-century technology. You might also enjoy the sardonic memoir he wrote just before he died in 1918: "The Education of Henry Adams."
on “Ask HN: What do you read to quench your thirst for meaning or curiosity?” ↗…efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White%27s_law 3. http://www.eoht.info/page/Darwin-Lotka+energy+law 4. See especially The Education of Henry Adams, considered one of the most important books of the 20th century. 5. Formulator of the maxim, "anyone who believes in infinite growth on a finite planet is either mad or an economist". 6. Georgescu-Roegen's…
on “Galactic-Scale Energy (2011)” ↗NYRB has brought out an excellent slim volume having the opening and closing chapters of Adams's history of the US 1800-1816. Interesting and amusing though The Education of Henry Adams is, the history is much superior. Yvor Winters's book, In Defense of Reason, a volume mostly of literary criticism has the best essay on Adams that I have ever read, addressing some of what the linked…
on “Henry Adams and the Gift of Pessimism” ↗I don't agree with civilian's post, but I think that he is onto something. Once you get past Noah Webster and Benjamin Spock, the shaping effect is hard for me to see. The Education of Henry Adams includes some interesting chapters, though it is not nearly Adams's best work: yet what in America has it shaped other than the occasional class reading list? Similarly there are fine and complex works…
on “Books That Shaped America” ↗"One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible." Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, Ch XX, Failure (1871). Yet curiously there is constant mention of friends in the preceding chapters and beyond: I looked up the quotation in the Gutenberg Project version, and the sentence following…
on “Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?” ↗> only the very top of wealth and power could listen to one of the few symphony orchestras performing Beethoven's compositions. Oh? From The Education of Henry Adams: """ When his companions insisted on passing two or three afternoons in the week at music-halls, drinking beer, smoking German tobacco, and looking at fat German women knitting, while an orchestra played…
on “The Composer Has No Clothes” ↗In Henery Adams's audio biography 'The Education of Henry Adams'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Education_of_Henry_Adams (i.e. Henery Adams the grandson of John Quincy Adams was a 19'th century historian). He discusses his theory of history. In his model history…
on “The Singularity in Our Past” ↗…autobiography. In effect, the school created a type but not a will. Four years of Harvard College, if successful, resulted in an autobiographical blank, a mind on which only a water-mark had been stamped." The Education of Henry Adams*, Chapter IV, "Harvard College". (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2044/pg2044.txt
on “35% of the wealthiest people in the US attended one of just 8 elite universities” ↗