View source for Brooks Adams

{{Short description|American historian and political scientist (1848–1927)}}
{{distinguish|Brooke Adams (disambiguation){{!}}Brooke Adams|Adam Brooks (disambiguation){{!}}Adam Brooks}}

{{Infobox writer
| name             = Brooks Adams
| image            = Brooks Adams, c. 1910.jpg
| caption          = Adams, photographed in 1910.
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1848|6|24}}
| birth_place      = [[Quincy, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1927|2|13|1848|6|24}}
| death_place      = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
| occupation       = Historian
| parents          = [[Charles Francis Adams Sr.]]<br>Abigail Brown Brooks
| spouse           = Evelyn Davis
| relatives        = [[John Quincy Adams]] (grandfather)<br>[[Peter Chardon Brooks]] (grandfather)<br>[[John Adams]] (great grandfather)<br>[[Henry Cabot Lodge]] (brother-in-law)
| alma_mater       = [[Harvard University]]
| birth_name       = Peter Chardon Brooks Adams
}}
'''Peter Chardon Brooks Adams''' (June 24, 1848 – February 13, 1927) was an American attorney, [[historian]], [[political scientist]] and a [[critic of capitalism]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/newinternational01gilm#page/102/mode/1up |title=The new international encyclopaedia |access-date=2012-11-27}}</ref>

==Early life and education==
Adams was born in [[Quincy, Massachusetts]], on June 24, 1848, son of [[Charles Francis Adams Sr.|Charles Francis Adams]] and Abigail Brown Brooks.<ref name="BDA1906" /> He attended schools in the [[United States]] and in [[Europe]].<ref name="BDA1906" />

Adams was a great-grandson of [[Founding Fathers of the United States|Founding Father]] and President [[John Adams]], a grandson of President [[John Quincy Adams]], the youngest son of U.S. diplomat [[Charles Francis Adams, Sr.|Charles Francis Adams]], and brother to [[Charles Francis Adams Jr.]] and [[Henry Adams]]. Henry was himself a philosopher, historian, and novelist, whose theories of history were influenced by his brother's work. His maternal grandfather was [[Peter Chardon Brooks]], the wealthiest man in Boston at the time of his death.

He graduated from [[Harvard University]] in 1870 and studied at [[Harvard Law School]] in 1870 and 1871.<ref name="BDA1906" /> Adams was secretary to his father in  [[Geneva]], in 1872, where the latter was an arbitrator upon the Alabama claims, under the "[[Treaty of Washington (1871)|Treaty of Washington]]."<ref name="BDA1906" /> He was admitted to the bar in 1873, practiced law in [[Boston]] until 1881, and then devoted himself to literary work.<ref name="BDA1906" />

==Social theories==
Adams believed that commercial civilizations rise and fall in predictable cycles. First, masses of people draw together in large population centers and engage in commercial activities. As their desire for wealth grows, they discard spiritual and creative values. Their greed leads to distrust and dishonesty, and eventually the society crumbles when a new, more economically energetic society takes its place.

In ''[[The Law of Civilization and Decay]]'' (1896), Adams noted that as new population centers emerged in the west, centers of world trade shifted from [[Constantinople]] to [[Venice]] to [[Amsterdam]] to [[London]]. This work has been compared to the later, longer works ''[[Decline of the West]]'' (1918) by [[Oswald Spengler]] and ''[[A Study of History]]'' (1934–1961) by [[Arnold J. Toynbee|Arnold Toynbee]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Decline of Civilizations|journal=The American Journal of Economics and Sociology|last=Neilson|first=Francis|volume=4|issue=4|date=July 1945|page=479|doi=10.1111/j.1536-7150.1945.tb01467.x}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Prophets of Decline: The Global Histories of Brooks Adams, Oswald Spengler, and Arnold Toynbee in the United States, 1896–1961|publisher=[[University of Tampere]], Department of History|last=Kuokkanen|first=Petri|date=17 May 2003|url=https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/67288/951-44-5643-2.pdf}}</ref><ref>Ludovici, Anthony (1944). [http://www.anthonymludovici.com/thelawof.htm "The Law of Civilization and Decay,"] ''The New English Weekly'' '''25''', pp. 177–178.</ref>

<blockquote>"In proportion as movement accelerates societies consolidate, and as societies consolidate they pass through a profound intellectual change. Energy ceases to find vent through the imagination and takes the form of capital; hence as civilizations advance, the imaginative temperament tends to disappear, while the economic instinct is fostered and thus substantially new varieties of men come to possess the world.

Nothing so portentous overhangs humanity as this mysterious and relentless acceleration of movement, which changes methods of competition and alters paths of trade; for by it countless millions of men and women are foredoomed to happiness or misery as certainly as the beasts and trees, which have flourished in the wilderness, are destined to vanish when the soil is subdued by man.

The Romans amassed the treasure by which they administered [[Roman Empire|their Empire]], through the plunder and enslavement of the world. The Empire cemented by that treasure crumbled when [[balance of trade|adverse exchanges]] carried the bullion of Italy to [[Constantinople|the shore of the Bosphorus]]. An accelerated movement among [[Franks|the semi-barbarians of the West]] caused the agony of [[the Crusades]], amidst which [[Sack of Constantinople|Constantinople fell]] as the Italian cities rose; while [[Republic of Venice|Venice]] and [[Republic of Genoa|Genoa]], and with them [[Arab world|the whole Arabic civilization]], shriveled when [[Kingdom of Portugal|Portugal]] [[Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India|established direct communication with Hindoostan]].

The opening of the ocean as a highroad precipitated the [[Reformation]] and built up [[Antwerp]], while in the end it [[Spanish Armada|ruined Spain]]; and finally the last great quickening of [[Industrial Revolution|the age of steam]], which centralized the world at [[London]], bathed the earth in blood from the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi]] to the [[Ganges River|Ganges]]. Thus religions are preached and are forgotten, empires rise and fall, philosophies are born and die, art and poetry bloom and fade, as societies pass from the disintegration wherein imagination kindles to the consolidation whose pressure ends in death."<br>{{align|right|—''The Law of Civilization and Decay'' (1896)<ref>{{cite book|title=The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay on History|last=Adams|first=Brooks|date=1896|publisher=The Macmillan Company|location=New York|page=298|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.184648/page/n311}}</ref>}}</blockquote>

Adams predicted in ''America's Economic Supremacy'' (1900) that an "[[Anglo-Saxon (anthropology)|Anglo-Saxon]] alliance" would arise in opposition to [[China]] and that [[New York City]] would become the center of world trade.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Adams |first=Brooks |title=America's Economic Supremacy |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]] |year=1900 |isbn=9781404725706 |pages=23–24}}</ref>

==Personal life==

In 1889, Adams married Evelyn Davis, the daughter of Admiral [[Charles Henry Davis]]. They did not have children.<ref>Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls.</ref>  Evelyn Davis's sister Anna was the wife of [[Henry Cabot Lodge]]. Her sister Louisa was the wife of John Dandridge Henley Luce, the son of [[Stephen Luce]].

Brooks Adams hired [[Wilhelmina Harris]] as social secretary for himself and his wife in 1920.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1991-05-29 |title=Wilhelmina Harris, 95; Directed Historic Site |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/29/obituaries/wilhelmina-harris-95-directed-historic-site.html |access-date=2023-02-05 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Harris lived with and worked for them until both Brooks and Evelyn died.

==Recognition==

He was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1918.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterA.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181021084031/http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterA.pdf|archive-date=2018-10-21|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=1 April 2011}}</ref>

== Legacy ==
Brooks Adams was the last Adams to live at the family home, [[Peacefield]], in Quincy, Massachusetts. After Adams's death, in accordance with his wishes, the house became a museum. It was first run through the family and then, later, by the [[National Park Service]]. Peacefield is now part of the [[Adams National Historical Park]].

==Portraits==

<gallery>
File:Brooks Adams with horse and dog, photograph by Marian Hooper Adams, ca. 1883.jpg|Brooks Adams with horse and dog, photographed by his sister-in-law, [[Marian Hooper Adams]] (ca. 1883).
File:Brooks Adams.jpg|Brooks Adams, no date
</gallery>

==Family tree==
{{Adams family tree}}

==Works==
* [https://archive.org/stream/emancipationmas00adamgoog#page/n4/mode/2up ''The Emancipation of Massachusetts: The Dream and the Reality,''] Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919 [1st Pub. 1887].
* [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000109007355 ''The Gold Standard: An Historical Study,''] Alfred Mudge & Son, 1894.
* [https://archive.org/stream/lawcivilization01adamgoog#page/n7/mode/2up ''The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay on History,''] The Macmillan Company, 1895.
* ''[[America's Economic Supremacy]],'' The Macmillan Co., 1900.
* [https://archive.org/stream/newempire03adamgoog#page/n6/mode/2up ''The New Empire,''] The Macmillan Company, 1902.
* [https://archive.org/stream/railwaysaspubli00wasgoog#page/n8/mode/2up ''Railways as Public Agents: A Study in Sovereignty,''] Boston, 1910.
* [https://archive.org/stream/theoryofsocialre00adamiala#page/n5/mode/2up ''Theory of Social Revolutions,''] The Macmillan Company, 1913.

===Essays===
* "The Spanish War and the Equilibrium of the World," ''The Forum'' '''25''' (6), August 1898.
* "The New Struggle for Life Among Nations," ''McClure's Magazine'' '''12''' (6), April 1899.
* "England's Decadence in the West Indies," ''The Forum,'' June 1899.
* "War and Economic Competition," ''Scribner's'' '''31''' (3), March 1902.
* "John Hay," ''McClure's Magazine'' '''19''' (2), June 1902.
* "Legal Supervision of the Transportation Tax," ''The North American Review,'' September 1904.
* [https://archive.org/stream/centralizationa00haingoog#page/n44/mode/2up "Nature of Law: Methods and Aim of Legal Education."] In: ''Centralization and the Law: Scientific Legal Education.'' Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1906.
* [https://archive.org/stream/centralizationa00haingoog#page/n86/mode/2up "Law Under Inequality: Monopoly."] In: ''Centralization and the Law: Scientific Legal Education.'' Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1906.
* [https://archive.org/stream/atlantic106bostuoft#page/26/mode/2up "A Problem in Civilization,"] ''The Atlantic Monthly,'' Vol. CVI, 1910.
* [https://archive.org/stream/atlantic111bostuoft#page/432/mode/2up "The Collapse of Capitalistic Government,"] ''The Atlantic Monthly'', Vol. CXI, 1913.

===Other===
* Henry Adams, [https://archive.org/stream/thedegradationof00adamuoft#page/n5/mode/2up ''The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma,''] with an introduction by Brooks Adams. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1919.

==References==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="BDA1906">{{BDA1906 |wstitle= Adams, Brooks |volume= 1 |pages=35-36 |short=}}</ref>
}}

==Bibliography==
* ''[[American National Biography]],'' vol. 1, pp.&nbsp;70–71.
* ''[[World Book]] Encyclopedia 1988.''
* [[s:The New International Encyclopædia/Adams, Brooks|"Adams, Brooks"]], ''The New International Encyclopædia''. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1905.
* [[s:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Adams, Charles Francis|"Adams, Charles Francis"]], ''Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography''. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1900.
* [[s:The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Adams, Brooks|"Adams, Brooks"]] in ''The Encyclopedia Americana''. New York, 1920.
* [[s:Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Adams, Brooks|"Adams, Brooks"]], ''Collier's New Encyclopedia''. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Co., 1921.

==Further reading==
===Books and book chapters===
* Anderson, Thornton. ''Brooks Adams, Constructive Conservative,'' Cornell University Press, 1951.
* Beringause, Arthur F. ''[https://archive.org/details/brooksadamsbiogr00beri Brooks Adams: A Biography],'' Knopf, 1955.
* Brands, H. W. "Brooks Adams: Marx for Imperialists," in ''The Struggle for the Soul of Foreign Policy'', Cambridge University Press, 1998.
* Donovan, Timothy Paul. ''Henry Adams and Brooks Adams; the Education of Two American Historians,'' University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

===Academic journals===
* [[Daniel Aaron|Aaron, Daniel]]. ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/361155 The Unusable Man: An Essay on the Mind of Brooks Adams]'', ''The New England Quarterly'' '''21''' (1), March 1948.
* [[Harry Elmer Barnes|Barnes, Harry Elmer]]. ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/45307146 Brooks Adams on World Utopia]'', ''Current History'', University of California Press, 1944.
* Beisner, Robert L. "Brooks Adams and Charles Francis Adams, Jr.: Historians of Massachusetts," ''The New England Quarterly'' '''35''' (1), March 1962.
* Carson, Mina J. ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/23538981 The Evolution of Brooks Adams]'', ''Biography'', University of Hawaii Press, 1983.
* [[Wilhelmina Harris|Harris, Wilhelmina S.]] ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/25080659 The Brooks Adams I Knew]'', ''Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society'', Third Series, Vol. 80, 1968.
* Hirschfield, Charles. ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/1844988 Brooks Adams and American Nationalism]'', ''American Historical Review'', Oxford University Press, 1964.
* Madison, Charles A. "Brooks Adams: Jeremian Critic of Capitalism," ''The Antioch Review'' '''4''' (3), Autumn, 1944.
* Mallan, John P. "Roosevelt, Brooks Adams, and Lea: The Warrior Critique of the Business Civilization," ''American Quarterly'' '''8''' (3), Autumn 1956.
* Marotta, Gary. "The Economics of American Empire: The View of Brooks Adams and Charles Arthur Conant," ''The American Economist'' '''19''' (2), Fall 1975.
* [[Paul C. Nagel|Nagel, Paul C.]] "Brooks Adams after Half a Century," ''Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society'', Third Series, Vol. 90, 1978.
* Tonsor, Stephen. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140512230846/http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=289&theme=home&loc=b "Adams, Brooks,"] ''First Principles'', June 2012.
* Williams, William A., ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/362163 Brooks Adams and American Expansion]'', ''The New England Quarterly'', '''25''' (2), 1952.

===Academic theses===
* Whiting, John. [http://www.whitings-writings.com/diatribes/ehe01.htm ''The Economics of Human Energy in Brooks Adams, Ezra Pound, and Robert Theobald,''] 1971.

==External links==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{wikiquote}}
* {{Gutenberg author | 2168}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Brooks Adams |sopt=t}}
* {{Librivox author |id=4561}}
* The Adams Memorial: [http://adamsmemorial.org/the-adamses/brooks/ Brooks Adams (1848–1927)].
* [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.Hough:hou01368 Guide to Brooks Adams papers] at [https://web.archive.org/web/20111121125844/http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/ Houghton Library], Harvard University.
* [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.Hough:hou00969 Guide to Correspondence of Brooks Adams with American novelist Henry Adams] at [https://web.archive.org/web/20111121125844/http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/ Houghton Library], Harvard University.
* Encyclopædia Britannica: [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/5097/Brooks-Adams Brooks Adams]
* Unitarian Universalist Historical Society: [https://archive.today/20130416035438/http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/brooksadams.html Peter Charadon Brooks Adams]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130822055805/http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/progress/BrooksAdamsBio.html Brooks Adams (1848–1927): Biographical Essay]
* {{Find a Grave|3631}}

{{John Quincy Adams}}
{{John Adams}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Brooks}}
[[Category:1848 births]]
[[Category:1927 deaths]]
[[Category:Adams family|Brooks]]
[[Category:American political writers]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
[[Category:Geopoliticians]]
[[Category:Harvard Law School alumni]]
[[Category:Members of the 1917 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:Writers from Quincy, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Historians from Massachusetts]]