With two presidents in his family tree, Henry Adams (1838-1918) grew up thinking of the White House almost as a second home. Not temperamentally suited for Washington's tawdry political wars, this brilliant cosmopolitan chose instead a deliberately obscure writing career. Originally published in editions of only half a dozen copies, his massive History of the United States during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison was finally released to the public in nine volumes in 1889-91. As Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills persuasively demonstrates in this masterful narrative, Adams's seminal work captures the central paradoxes and schisms of American identity. One master interprets another.