SANFORD PINSKER
Henry Adams and Our New Century
Among the thousand symbols of ultimate energy, the dynamo was
not so human as some, but it was the most expressive.
Henry Adams,
The Education of Henry Adams
I
WAS HARDLY SURPRISED
when
The Education of Henry Adams,
surely one of the oddest and most important of American books,
recently headed up the Modern Library series ranking of one hun–
dred best works of English language non-fiction. Such lists seem quin–
tessentially "American." Indeed, I can imagine many readers ticking off
the books they've thumbed through, even as they make plans to browse
around in the others. Much of what drives this essentially well-meaning
effort is the guilt that has always been our country's blessing and curse.
As a people, we like nothing more than to construct ambitious "to do"
lists and then to take a measure of satisfaction as each chore is com–
pleted, or in the case at hand, as each book is dutifully read. Benjamin
Franklin, singularly responsible for such civic improvements as fire com–
panies, circulating libraries, lightning rods, and cobbled streets, is also
the patron saint of list makers everywhere. Add the palpable fact that the
grains of the twentieth ·century's hourglass quickly ran out and all the
necessary conditions seemed right for separating what is worth preserv–
ing from the merely ephemeral. In looking back, we can see where we
once were and why we ended the twentieth century as we have.
Thus, we have seen (and disagreed with) the American Film Institute's
(AFI) list of the one hundred best American films and the even more
controversial announcement by the editorial board of Modern Library
series about the one hundred best English language novels. One can
safely predict that there will be more such groupings as we speed
through the year
2000.
No doubt some organization will come up with
a list of the one hundred most important American athletes, as others
did with American musicians. Granted, such lists are consciously
