The Education of Henry Adams

David Colacci gracefully takes listeners through the education--from cradle to grave--of the grandson of President John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of President John Adams. The interrogative premise of the work is posed early: "What might become of such a child of the seventeenth and eighteenth century if he should wake up to find himself required to navigate the twentieth century?" The question is answered at length with occasional pomposity, an over-the-top writing style, and thought-provoking tours through history--all well narrated. The third-person account allows for straightforward storytelling--with no characterizations required for Adams and the historic figures who abound in these pages--from London powerbrokers to twentieth-century scientists. D.P.D. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine


Henry Adams's Pulitzer Prize- winning autobiography tells not only his own life story, as seen through the lens of his lifelong quest for education, but the story of the development of the American mind throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. John McDonough fits his delivery to the steady cadence and stately parallelisms of Adams's prose and incorporates Adams's occasional snippet of Latin, German, or French with smooth ease. Adams's narrative is told from a great emotional and chronological distance; McDonough captures that wonderfully, letting the story unroll from his lips one measured word at a time. Indeed, the production's only weakness is that his leisurely delivery makes a long book seem even longer at times. G.T.B. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine