Henry Adams was there…

Book review:

The United States in 1800

by Henry Adams

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1955, 1966

132 pages

Henry Adams wrote a colossal History of the United States of America during the First Administration of Thomas Jefferson (1889).

This slim volume is the first six chapters of that history, and it’s doggone interesting reading even for the casual student of history. Adams offers a somewhat disconnected, but nevertheless insightful, potpourri of facts and personal observations about the people of the very young United States.

For example, he reports that in 1800 the organization and operation of Harvard College was not exactly what you would guess: the college had a president, a professor of theology, a professor of mathematics, a professor of Hebrew, and four tutors, and “the method of instruction [was] suited to children fourteen years of age; the instruction itself was poor, and the discipline was indifferent.” So much for a college education in 1800.

The United States in 1800 offers an apparently realistic and sometimes deprecating panorama of the people and culture of the United States in the early 19th century.

There’s no particular reason to think Adams didn’t really know what he was talking about.

* * * * * *

Book review: All The President’s Men

About the men and women

who crave power…

by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

click here

–

As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”