James Young wants political theorists to attend to Henry Adams (1838–1918), and they should. In certain ways, Adams is easy to admire. He is a splendid writer; he wrote a good deal, and nearly every sentence is perfect. He was a witty and urbane professor of history at Harvard and later he was a wry and wise Washington insider with powerful aesthetic faculties. As his America rapidly changed, he tried to master the new forms of knowledge needed to understand it.