Item #19083 A letter to American teachers of history. Henry Adams.
A letter to American teachers of history
A letter to American teachers of history

Signed by Adams

A letter to American teachers of history

Washington, [D.C.]: [press of J.H. Furst Co., Baltimore], 1910. First edition, signed by Henry Adams at the end of the introductory letter; 12mo, pp. vi, 214, [2]; original green cloth, spine a bit sunned and with a small snag in the cloth (not effecting any lettering), otherwise very good. "In 1910 Adams published and scattered widely a little volume which he called A Letter to American Teachers of History. Its style was designedly colloquial and its tone provocative. Assuming the validity of the second law of thermodynamics, that there is a universal tendency to the dissipation of mechanical energy, he pointed out the dilemma of teachers of history if they postulated a progressive evolution in human history towards some state of perfection, or tried to exempt mind from the operation of the law. What did they propose to do about it? Human thought should be considered as a substance passing from one phase to another, through a series of critical points which are determined by attraction, acceleration, and volume. - the equivalents of pressure, temperature, and volume in mechanical physics. In short, the future historian who would interpret the movement called history would have to seek his education in the world of mathematical physics" (Allen Johnson, in DAB). BAL 34: "Many copies, perhaps most, signed by the author at p. vi." Item #19083

Price: $750.00

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