A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A revelatory biography of literary icon Henry AdamsΓÇöone of AmericaΓÇÖs most prominent writers and intellectuals of his era,who witnessed and contributed to the United StatesΓÇÖ dramatic transition from a colonial society to a modern nation. Henry Adams is perhaps the most eclecticaccomplishedand important American writer of his time. His autobiography and modern classic The Education of Henry Adams was widely considered one of the best English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century. The last member of his distinguished familyΓÇöafter great-grandfather John Adamsand grandfather John Quincy AdamsΓÇöto gain national attentionhe is remembered today as an historiana political commentatorand a memoirist. Nowhistorian David Brown sheds light on the brilliant yet under-celebrated life of this major American intellectual. Adams not only lived through the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution but he met Abraham Lincolnbowed before Queen Victoriaand counted powerful figuresincluding Secretary of State John HaySenator Henry Cabot Lodgeand President Theodore Roosevelt as friends and neighbors. His observations of these men and their policies in his private letters provide a penetrating assessment of Gilded Age America on the cusp of the modern era. The Last American Aristocrat details AdamsΓÇÖs relationships with his wife (Marian ΓÇ£CloverΓÇ¥ Hooper) andfollowing her suicideElizabeth Cameronthe young wife of a senator and part of the famous Sherman clan from Ohio. Henry AdamsΓÇÖs lettersΓÇöthousands of themΓÇödemonstrate his struggles with depressionfamilial expectationsand reconciling with his unwanted widowerΓÇÖs existence. Presenting intimate and insightful details of a fascinating and unusual American life and a new window on nineteenth century US historyThe Last American Aristocrat shows us a more ΓÇ£modernΓÇ¥ and ΓÇ£humanΓÇ¥ Henry Adams than ever before.