SOURCE: "Henry and Brooks Adams: Parallels to Two Generations," in The Southern Review, Vol. V, No. 2, Autumn, 1939, pp. 308-34.

In the following excerpt, Blackmur explores the combined influence that brothers Henry and Brooks exerted over the study of history.

The greater reputation and the imaginative character of his work have made Henry Adams' name more familiar and more significant than that of his brother Brooks. Actually each inseminated the other; their thought along certain lines was coöperative, and it is impossible to deal fairly with the political and energetic ideas which occupied Henry Adams towards the end of his life—from 1893 to the end—without considering them in connection with those of Brooks Adams. It is here proposed to lay down the pattern of that connection and to underline the significance of its product.

The relationship between the two brothers is probably best expressed by accepting the...