The autobiography of Henry Adams is comprised of two fundamental parts:
an eye-opening history of the United States as it ascended to industrial
and technological greatness, and a critique of education in the 19th
century. Born into an influential family and directly descended from two
Presidents of the United States, Adams lived in and chronicled events in
the United States for most of his life. Cognitively buoyed by an
excellent education at Harvard University, and given perspective on the
wider world during a great tour of Europe he undertook shortly after
graduating from college, Henry Adams became a distinguished and able
chronicler of the past. However, Adams was taken aback at the sheer pace
of change which characterized the development of the USA throughout his
lifetime. Whereas the books he had studied indicated that nations
steadily developed over centuries, the USA achieved such enormous
progress in a matter of decades.