Improvement of the world

the long version

"Of all Americans, Benjamin Franklin included, Henry Adams attained the broadcast array of important achievements. Yet most of the best things he did were secret.". "In this book, the story of Henry Adams runs along several lines. One is his "partnership" with beautiful, capable Elizabeth Cameron. (The word is hers.) One is his alliance with John Hay, which for seven years, wholly in secret, involved their sharing the office of U.S. Secretary of State. One is travel to the Caribbean and Mexico, the American West, Egypt and the Near East, Greece, the Balkans and Russia, Scandinavia, and innumerable medieval sites in France, Italy, and Sicily. One is returns to Washington as the capital's foremost permanent resident. One is a shower of great writings: a history of Tahiti; a state paper proposing the "Recognition of Cuban Independence": two editions of Mont Saint Michel and Chartres; an essay, "Chansons de Geste," still unknown; and a masterpiece, The Education of Henry Adams, the prototype of a new literary form - the education - which Adams discovered and developed.". "Present throughout the story are Adams's unfailing practical optimism, perpetual kindness, perfect intellectual honesty, unsurpassable humor, political clairvoyance, amazing industry in research, quickness to generate new ideas, and fidelity to America and democracy."--BOOK JACKET.