Adams, Henry Brooks (1838-1918)

US historian and novelist, a grandson of President John Quincy Adams. He published the nine-volume History of the United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison (1889-91), a study of the evolution of democracy in the USA.

Born in Boston, he graduated 1858 from Harvard University and later taught medieval history there 1870-77. He also was editor of the North American Review 1870-76. His works include a study of the medieval world Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (1904), and a classic autobiography The Education of Henry Adams (privately printed 1907, published 1918), as well as the novels Democracy, an American Novel (1880), which reflects his disillusionment with the US political system, and Esther (1884), published under a pseudonym, about the conflict between religion and science.