books

Garry Wills has never been one to shy away from big subjects, and in Henry Adams' nine-volume History of the United States of America, he's found one of his biggest. To hear Wills tell it, most critics of Adams' History, which covers the presidential administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, have never gotten past the first four chapters. "Can these people not read?" Wills spits. Wills' Henry Adams and the Making of America (Houghton Mifflin) is split into two parts, the first a history of Adams himself, grandson to John Quincy Adams, pointing out to those who would call the History an attack on Jefferson to John Quincy's benefit that Adams fairly despised his grandfather for his cruel treatment of his wife, Louisa, Henry's most loved relation. (John Quincy's mother, Abigail, is revealed as a frigid, even monstrous creature who schemed to separate Louisa from her children, the better to secure her own disastrous influence on them.) In part two, Wills tackles the History itself, quoting liberally from the diamond prose that, he says, has made Adams a "wholly owned subsidiary of English departments," neglected by the historical establishment. Wills spends too much time scolding his predecessors and pursuing what will seem to readers outside the academy like family feuds, but he also dusts off a bonafide classic.

Garry Wills reads Thu., Nov. 17, 8 p.m., $6-$12, Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341.