The History of the United States of America 1801–1817  The History of the United States of America 1801 – 1817, also known as The History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, is a 9-volume history written by American intellectual Henry Adams, and first published between 1889 and 1891. The entire work has been reprinted many times, most often in a 2-volume format. Historian Garry Wills has described it as "the greatest prose masterpiece of non-fiction in America in the 19th century." The first six chapters of the first volume have also been published separately as America in 1800.