ADAMS, Brooks (1848-1927)

The Theory of Social Revolutions

New York: The Macmillan Company, 64-66 Fifth Avenue, 1913. 8vo. (7 1/3 x 4 4/5 inches). First edition.[iii]-vii, 240, [7] pp. Half-title, Title, Colophon, Prefatory Note, Contents: Theory of Social Revolutions, Collapse of Capitalistic Government, Limitations of the Judicial Function, American Courts as Legislative Chambers, Social Equilibrium, Political Courts, Inferences, Index, Advertisements.

Publisher's original panelled brown cloth with spine ruled and lettered gilt reading: 'The Theory of Social Revolutions' and 'Brooks Adams'

Scion of an American political dynasty, the historian Brooks Adams nevertheless was an unyielding critic of the American economy and political system. His insightful Jeremiads were popular in his day, but unlike Veblen, Sinclair, and other Progressive-era voices, he is now little read.

Brooks Adams was an American historian and critic of capitalism who questioned the success of American democracy and understood the March of Civilization to be a westward movement of centers of trade; for instance, during Brooks's lifetime, from London to New York. Adams came from a long Puritan line of Boston Brahmins: he was the son of Lincoln's ambassador at the Court of St. James, Charles Francis Adams Sr., brother to the historian Henry Adams, grandson of both President John Quincy Adams and the then-richest man in Massachusetts, Peter Chardon Adams, and the descendant of the second US president John Adams and the American revolutionary Sam Adams. In 1913, Adams published The Theory of Social Revolutions, a study of the defects in the American form of government, developing the idea that the existence of great wealth is itself a danger because the wealthy exert private power but don't accept public responsibility. Adams disliked the economic system of the West writ large. He believed that commercial civilizations rise and fall in predictable cycles. First, masses of people draw together in population centers and engage in commercial activities. As their desire for wealth grows, they discard their spiritual and creative values. Their greed leads to distrust and dishonesty, and eventually society crumbles. Adams wrote history from a seemingly endless conservative-aristocratic political genealogy. But the sophistication of his understanding of the workings of American Government up to 1913 is unmatched, and his work still reads as relevant. However, he doesn't seem conscious of the fact that it is the use of political power to benefit a narrow elite which is the basic problem of government. He instead focuses on the incompetence, illogic, and irrationality of those individuals who govern the country. His thoroughgoing critiques of the American system have ensured that his writing be memory-holed. Thousands have read about his illustrious pedigree, but few have had this opportunity to read the man's work.

OCLC: 1143716.

Item #41441

Price: $500.00