born Feb. 16, 1838, Boston, Mass., U.S.
died March 27, 1918, Washington, D.C.
U.S. historian and man of letters.
A product of Boston's elite Brahmin class and a descendant of two presidents, he was infused with disgust for American politics of his time. As a young newspaper correspondent and editor, he called for social and political reforms, but he later became disillusioned with a world he characterized as devoid of principle. That loss of faith was reflected in his novel Democracy (1880). His study of U.S. democracy culminated in his nine-volume History of the United States of America (1889–91), which received immediate acclaim. In Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (1913) he described the medieval worldview as reflected in its architecture. The Education of Henry Adams (1918), his best-known work and one of the outstanding autobiographies of Western literature, traced his confrontations with the uncertainties of the 20th century.