Peter Chardon Brooks Adams (June 24, 1848 – February 13, 1927) was an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
attorney,
historian,
political scientist
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and l ...
and a
critic of capitalism.
Early life and education
Adams was born in
Quincy, Massachusetts, on June 24, 1848, son of
Charles Francis Adams and Abigail Brown Brooks.
He attended schools in the
United States and in
Europe.
Adams was a great-grandson of President
John Adams, a grandson of President
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States S ...
, the youngest son of U.S. diplomat
Charles Francis Adams, and brother to
Charles Francis Adams Jr. and
Henry Adams
Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27, 1918) was an American historian and a member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. Presidents.
As a young Harvard graduate, he served as secretary to his father, Charles Fran ...
. He was a philosopher, historian, and novelist, whose theories of history were influenced by his work. His maternal grandfather was
Peter Chardon Brooks
Peter Chardon Brooks (January 6, 1767 – January 1, 1849) was a wealthy Massachusetts merchant.
Early life
Brooks born in North Yarmouth, Maine, on January 6, 1767. His parents were the Rev. Edward Brooks and Abigail Brown. In 1769, the famil ...
, the wealthiest man in Boston at the time of his death.
He graduated from
Harvard University in 1870 and studied at
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each class i ...
in 1870 and 1871.
Adams was secretary to his father in
Geneva, in 1872, where the latter was an arbitrator upon the Alabama claims, under the "
Treaty of Washington."
He was admitted to the bar in 1873, practiced law in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most p ...
until 1881, and then devoted himself to literary work.
Social theories
Adams believed that commercial civilizations rise and fall in predictable cycles. First, masses of people draw together in large population centers and engage in commercial activities. As their desire for wealth grows, they discard spiritual and creative values. Their greed leads to distrust and dishonesty, and eventually the society crumbles when a new, more economically energetic society takes its place.
In ''
The Law of Civilization and Decay'' (1896), Adams noted that as new population centers emerged in the west, centers of world trade shifted from
Constantinople to
Venice to
Amsterdam to
London. This work has been compared to the later, longer works ''
Decline of the West
''The Decline of the West'' (german: Der Untergang des Abendlandes; more literally, ''The Downfall of the Occident''), is a two-volume work by Oswald Spengler. The first volume, subtitled ''Form and Actuality'', was published in the summer of 191 ...
'' (1918) by
Oswald Spengler and ''
A Study of History
''A Study of History'' is a 12-volume universal history by the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, published from 1934 to 1961. It received enormous popular attention but according to historian Richard J. Evans, "enjoyed only a brief vogue befo ...
'' (1934–61) by
Arnold Toynbee.
"In proportion as movement accelerates societies consolidate, and as societies consolidate they pass through a profound intellectual change. Energy ceases to find vent through the imagination and takes the form of capital; hence as civilizations advance, the imaginative temperament tends to disappear, while the economic instinct is fostered and thus substantially new varieties of men come to possess the world.
Nothing so portentous overhangs humanity as this mysterious and relentless acceleration of movement, which changes methods of competition and alters paths of trade; for by it countless millions of men and women are foredoomed to happiness or misery as certainly as the beasts and trees, which have flourished in the wilderness, are destined to vanish when the soil is subdued by man.
The Romans amassed the treasure by which they administered their Empire, through the plunder and enslavement of the world. The Empire cemented by that treasure crumbled when adverse exchanges carried the bullion of Italy to the shore of the Bosphorus. An accelerated movement among the semi-barbarians of the West caused the agony of the Crusades, amidst which Constantinople fell as the Italian cities rose; while Venice and Genoa, and with them the whole Arabic civilization, shriveled when Portugal established direct communication with Hindoostan.
The opening of the ocean as a highroad precipitated the Reformation and built up Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, , while in the end it ruined Spain; and finally the last great quickening of the age of steam, which centralized the world at London, bathed the earth in blood from the Mississippi to the Ganges. Thus religions are preached and are forgotten, empires rise and fall, philosophies are born and die, art and poetry bloom and fade, as societies pass from the disintegration wherein imagination kindles to the consolidation whose pressure ends in death."
Adams predicted in ''America's Economic Supremacy'' (1900) that an "
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...
alliance" would arise in opposition to
China and that
New York City would become the center of world trade.
Personal life
In 1889, Adams married Evelyn Davis, the daughter of Admiral
Charles Henry Davis
Charles Henry Davis ( – ) was an American rear admiral of the United States Navy. While working for the U.S. Coast Survey, he researched tides and currents, and located an uncharted shoal that had caused wrecks off of the coast of New York ...
. They did not have children. Evelyn Davis's sister Anna was the wife of
Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge (May 12, 1850 November 9, 1924) was an American Republican politician, historian, and statesman from Massachusetts. He served in the United States Senate from 1893 to 1924 and is best known for his positions on foreign polic ...
. Her sister Louisa was the wife of John Dandridge Henley Luce, the son of
Stephen Luce
Stephen Bleecker Luce (March 25, 1827 – July 28, 1917) was a U.S. Navy admiral. He was the founder and first president of the Naval War College, between 1884 and 1886.
Biography
Born in Albany, New York, to Dr. Vinal Luce and Charlotte Bleecke ...
.
Brooks Adams hired
Wilhelmina Harris
Wilhelmina Sellers Harris (March 22, 1896 – May 20, 1991) was an American historian and writer. Harris’s connection to American history began in 1920 when she was hired as social secretary to Brooks Adams and his wife, Evelyn. Adams was the l ...
as social secretary for himself and his wife in 1920.
[NYT Obituary, https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/29/obituaries/wilhelmina-harris-95-directed-historic-site.html] Harris lived with and worked for them until both Brooks and Evelyn died.
Recognition
He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1918.
Legacy
Brooks Adams was the last Adams family member to live at
Peacefield. After Adams's death, in accordance with his wishes, the house became a museum, first run through the family and then later by the
National Park Service. Today, Peacefield is part of
Adams National Historical Park
Adams National Historical Park, formerly Adams National Historic Site, in Quincy, Massachusetts, preserves the home of United States presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, of U.S. envoy to Great Britain, Charles Francis Adams, and of write ...
.
Portraits
File:Brooks Adams with horse and dog, photograph by Marian Hooper Adams, ca. 1883.jpg, Brooks Adams with horse and dog, photograph by Marian Hooper Adams
Marian "Clover" Hooper Adams (September 13, 1843 – December 6, 1885) was an American socialite, active society hostess, arbiter of Washington, DC, and an accomplished amateur photographer.
Clover, who has been cited as the inspiration for w ...
, ca. 1883.
File:Brooks Adams.jpg, Picture of Brooks Adams, n.d.
Family tree
Works
''The Emancipation of Massachusetts: The Dream and the Reality,''Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919
st Pub. 1887
''The Gold Standard: An Historical Study,''Alfred Mudge & Son, 1894.
''The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay on History,''The Macmillan Company, 1895.
''America's Economic Supremacy,''The Macmillan Co., 1900.
''The New Empire,''The Macmillan Company, 1902.
''Railways as Public Agents: A Study in Sovereignty,''Boston, 1910.
''Theory of Social Revolutions,''The Macmillan Company, 1913.
Essays
* "The Spanish War and the Equilibrium of the World," ''The Forum'' 25 (6), August 1898.
* "The New Struggle for Life Among Nations," ''McClure's Magazine'' 12 (6), April 1899.
* "England's Decadence in the West Indies," ''The Forum,'' June 1899.
* "War and Economic Competition," ''Scribner's'' 31 (3), March 1902.
* "John Hay," ''McClure's Magazine'' 19 (2), June 1902.
* "Legal Supervision of the Transportation Tax," ''The North American Review,'' September 1904.
"Nature of Law: Methods and Aim of Legal Education."In: ''Centralization and the Law: Scientific Legal Education.'' Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1906.
"Law Under Inequality: Monopoly."In: ''Centralization and the Law: Scientific Legal Education.'' Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1906.
"A Problem in Civilization,"''The Atlantic Monthly,'' Vol. CVI, 1910.
"The Collapse of Capitalistic Government,"''The Atlantic Monthly'', Vol. CXI, 1913.
Other
* Henry Adams
''The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma,''with an introduction by Brooks Adams. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1919.
References
Bibliography
* ''
American National Biography
The ''American National Biography'' (ANB) is a 24-volume biographical encyclopedia set that contains about 17,400 entries and 20 million words, first published in 1999 by Oxford University Press under the auspices of the American Council of Le ...
,'' vol. 1, pp. 70–71.
* ''
World Book
The ''World Book Encyclopedia'' is an American encyclopedia. The encyclopedia is designed to cover major areas of knowledge uniformly, but it shows particular strength in scientific, technical, historical and medical subjects. ''World Book'' w ...
Encyclopedia 1988.''
*
''"Adams, Brooks,"'' The New International Encyclopædia. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1905.
*
''"Adams, Charles Francis,"'' Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1900.
*
"Adams, Brooks" in The Encyclopedia Americana. New York, 1920.
*
''"Adams, Brooks,"'' Collier's New Encyclopedia. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Co., 1921.
Further reading
Books and book chapters
* Anderson, Thornton. ''Brooks Adams, Constructive Conservative,'' Cornell University Press, 1951.
* Beringause, Arthur F.
Brooks Adams: A Biography'' Knopf, 1955.
* Brands, H. W. "Brooks Adams: Marx for Imperialists," in ''The Struggle for the Soul of Foreign Policy'', Cambridge University Press, 1998.
* Donovan, Timothy Paul. ''Henry Adams and Brooks Adams; the Education of Two American Historians,'' University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
Academic journals
*
Aaron, Daniel.
The Unusable Man: An Essay on the Mind of Brooks Adams', ''The New England Quarterly'' 21 (1), March 1948.
*
Barnes, Harry Elmer.
Brooks Adams on World Utopia', ''Current History'', University of California Press, 1944.
* Beisner, Robert L. "Brooks Adams and Charles Francis Adams, Jr.: Historians of Massachusetts," ''The New England Quarterly'' 35 (1), March 1962.
* Carson, Mina J.
The Evolution of Brooks Adams', ''Biography'', University of Hawaii Press, 1983.
*
Harris, Wilhelmina S. The Brooks Adams I Knew', ''Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society'', Third Series, Vol. 80, 1968.
* Hirschfield, Charles.
Brooks Adams and American Nationalism', ''American Historical Review'', Oxford University Press, 1964.
* Madison, Charles A. "Brooks Adams: Jeremian Critic of Capitalism," ''The Antioch Review'' 4 (3), Autumn, 1944.
* Mallan, John P. "Roosevelt, Brooks Adams, and Lea: The Warrior Critique of the Business Civilization," ''American Quarterly'' 8 (3), Autumn 1956.
* Marotta, Gary. "The Economics of American Empire: The View of Brooks Adams and Charles Arthur Conant," ''The American Economist'' 19 (2), Fall 1975.
*
Nagel, Paul C. "Brooks Adams after Half a Century," ''Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society'', Third Series, Vol. 90, 1978.
* Tonsor, Stephen
"Adams, Brooks,"''First Principles'', June 2012.
* Williams, William A.,
Brooks Adams and American Expansion', ''The New England Quarterly'', 25 (2), 1952.
Academic theses
* Whiting, John
1971.
External links
*
*
*
* The Adams Memorial
Brooks Adams (1848–1927)
Guide to Brooks Adams papersa
Houghton Library Harvard University.
Guide to Correspondence of Brooks Adams with American novelist Henry Adamsa
Houghton Library Harvard University.
* Encyclopædia Britannica
Brooks Adams* Unitarian Universalist Historical Society
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Brooks
1848 births
1927 deaths
Adams political family
American political writers
American male non-fiction writers
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Geopoliticians
Harvard Law School alumni
Members of the 1917 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Writers from Quincy, Massachusetts
Historians from Massachusetts