"The author 'shipped out of Boston in 1834 on the "Pilgrim" and sailed around the Horn to California on a hide-trading expedition. The book is based on the journal he kept during the voyage. Horrified by the brutal captain's mistreatment of the sailors, and shocked by their lack of redress, Dana wrote with a burning indignation that did much to rouse the public to the mariners' plight.'" Benet's Reader's Ency of Am Lit.

Henry Adams (great-grandson of John Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams) asserts that his conventional education was defective because it did not prepare him to live in a world transformed by the new science and technology. This autobiography provides an insightful exploration of the tumultuous age in which he lived.