Cliffsnotes on Adams' the Education of Henry Adams

In "New Essays on The Education of Henry Adams" (a collection published by Cambridge UP), literary scholar John Carlos Rowe admits that "The baffling multitude of historical characters, significant events, and political currents has generally been the first obstacle to the reader's involvement in this narrative.... it still amazes me that readers helped turn a book of such difficult historical references into a classic." And so I was about two-thirds of the way through "The Education of Henry Adams" when I threw in the towel and admitted that, if I hoped to finish the work, I too needed a guide to all the obscure events and even more obscure personalities referred to by Adams in his otherwise remarkable book. This purchase was actually my first-ever exposure to the CliffsNotes series--and I was pleasantly surprised. Written by Stanley Baldwin, this short handbook offers a chapter-by-chapter overview of the "Education," delivers the necessary historical and biographical background, and highlights the work's important themes. This is no condensed version, however; you won't feel like you've read "The Education of Henry Adams" after you're gone through this booklet. Instead, Baldwin gives the reader just enough information to understand Adams's work, and he wisely leaves many of the most interesting episodes and all of Adams's clever observations and witty quips for readers to discover on their own. Although some of the presentation is a bit repetitive for a 100-page booklet (and this approach, I gather, is emblematic for the titles in this series), this is a solid, useful, and inexpensive introduction for readers like myself who might otherwise enjoy the "Education" if they weren't constantly flummoxed by the insider references and historical arcana Adams tosses along the way.