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Gillis J. Harp, Henry Adams: The Historian as Political Theorist, Journal of American History, Volume 89, Issue 3, December 2002, Page 1069, https://doi.org/10.2307/3092414
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Historians of political thought have often neglected Henry Adams's work, in part because he never articulated his political theory or philosophy of history in a systematic way. James P. Young seeks to redress this oversight in Henry Adams: The Historian as Political Theorist. Young attempts to correct what he characterizes as the “mistaken” portrait of Adams as simply an “antidemocratic ideologue.” Although Adams's later works are marked by a certain cynicism, it was a cynicism “born of disappointment”; Young contends that Adams was essentially a democratic idealist. He was “a believer in democracy, though he was often dismayed by the results it produced.” Young's study focuses both on Adams's interpretation of American history and on his general philosophy of history. In the latter field, Adams “bemoan[ed] the world lost to us with the decline of medieval unity and religious faith” but, Young adds, without indulging in a fantasy that it could be restored.
