This is the autobiography of Henry Adams, sort of, although you will read nothing about his wife or his family or about anything really personal at all. All throughout the book Adams keeps describing himself as uneducated and ignorant even though he spouts French, German and Latin at every turn and he traveled all over the world! But he is just a big dummy, according to him. He is a droll fellow and his caustic comments gave me a chuckle.
I struggled with this book, being, unlike Adams, a true ignoramus. It talks about philosophy and physics, neither of which do I understand or care about. Towards the end of the book, Adams gets all bent out of shape over the direction science is taking at the time (about 1900). It seems like scientists have discovered these pesky things called x-rays & radiation and, pow, everything is changed! Before these discoveries, the accepted view of the Universe was that it is orderly, planned and purposeful. But because of the new discoveries, according to Adams, the Universe has no meaning and no purpose and we are just cosmic accidents. I don't know, maybe that was a big deal a hundred years ago, but now I just shrug my shoulders and say so what? Besides, I am not sure that the discovery of particles and waves unknown to that generation proves the Universe is random & not planned or purposeful. We are still arguing about this today: "intelligent design" to quote the Republicans vs the "big bang."
The ending of the book is kind of sad. He thought that by the 1960s people would be able to generate unlimited, free power & energy and that we would all be living in peace and prosperity and would have risen above the war and strife of the past. Wrong!
The first two thirds of the book, which won the Pulitzer in 1919, were a lot easier to read and enjoy than the last third where Adams kept trying to describe history in terms of physics which completely went over my head! Still, I think it was worth reading.
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