Thomas Jefferson by R. B. Bernstein Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Thomas Jefferson
Book Review: Revolutionary Enigma
Summary: 3 Stars
Well written. Well organized. Enjoyed this read very much.
Learned several things about the period and Jefferson's role in it. Learned very little about the man. This is a brief recounting focusing on Jefferson's political life. Despite the fact that the man wrote literally 1000s of letters, Jefferson remains one of the most, er, "hidden" figures in American History from a personal standpoint.
Bernstein acknowledges this with his closing paragraph in the book:
"...whether he would even comprehend the United States in the first years of the twenty-first century, Jefferson's shadow looms large over us, thanks to the conflicting influences of his thinking, doing, and - most important - his writing. That truth alone requires each generation to reacquaint itself with the life and work of Thomas Jefferson, and to grapple with his ambiguous legacies."
If you are lookin' for a brief catalog of important events driven or influenced by our third president, this is a book fabulous for that purpose.
If you are lookin' for an indepth character evaluation and to learn more about the man himself, you'll need to look elsewhere. Good luck with that. From what I've been able to determine such a book does not exist. I have come to the conclusion that it never will.
The great enigma of the Revolutionary period. Thomas Jefferson.
Book Review: Simple, basic Jefferson primer
Summary: 3 Stars
This is an extremely basic and simple 192 page summary of the life and accomplishments of Thomas Jefferson. In that context, it is perfectly acceptable. For the life of me, however, I don't see how this could be rated a five (or even four) star effort.
If you give this 5 stars, what do you give Truman, or John Adams or War and Peace? When you go to your average Holiday Inn, do you give it five stars? If so, what is a Four Seasons or Ritz Carlton? Do you award the gold medal to a diver who does a perfectly executed swan dive? Degree of difficulty must come into play.
Having said that, if you're looking for a beginner biography for your junior high student, this would be an excellent selection. If you're interested in the American Presidents series and want to skim the surface of many of our Presidents without going in depth on any of them, this would be the way to go. If you're looking for depth, analysis and context, however, I'd certainly look for more than a 192 page summation.
Why then did I purchase this work? I knew what it was when I bought it. I had just finished Ron Chernow's "Hamilton" and had previously read David McCollough's "John Adams". Both of these subjects were rivals and at times bitter enemies of Jefferson. Having been brought up to view Jefferson as a Founding Father of great intellect and importance, it was a little disconcerting to view him through the writing of McCollough and Chernow as a dishonest, venal, calculating opportunist. Chernow, especially, falls into hero worship mode when comparing and contrasting his subject, Hamilton, with Jefferson.
In buying this work, I was looking for a more balanced effort without having to invest the time in an 800 page biography which largely recounted the historical events already covered in previously read biographies on Washington, Adams and Hamilton. For that purpose, it was just what the doctor ordered. Unlike Chernow, Bernstein examines his subject warts and all. He acknowledges and doesn't downplay his weaknesses, while at the same time revealing his unquestionable brilliance in many areas.
I highly recommend "Hamilton" as an outstanding history lesson and biography of a little appreciated and sometimes disregarded founding father. However, this little tome is a good antidote for the character assassination sustained by Jefferson in the aforementioned work.
Book Review: Society's patterns are rooted in history.
Summary: 4 Stars
If you're curious about Thomas Jefferson the man and the nation he helped to create, then I strongly recommend this book. It gives a reasonable picture of the mindset of 18th century American intellectuals who were greatly influence by Enlightenment thinking. Jefferson responded strongly to Enlightenment ideals as he struggled to forge his identity as a Patriot and as a Southern gentleman.
Alas, he was unable to find a practical way of fusing those ideals with the republican system he helped to create. The result is the acrimonious political system of modern America.
Book Review: The Power of Ideals
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first book that I've read about Jefferson, my knowledge of this Founding Father to date having come from high school and college courses and an occasional newspaper article. This compact, well-written biography makes for a compelling read and, for me, clearly whetted my appetite to find out more about what made this oratorically-challenged man of ideals tick.
The portrait painted of Jefferson is an interesting, occasionally troubling one, that of a man somewhat thin-skinned, who would suffer what he considered fools in silence rather than open his mouth, who didn't have (in today's vernacular) "the fire in the belly" for politics and trembled while delivering his inaugural address, and whose conduct with two married women was at best questionable. He was a man who could trot out the theory of nullification when affronted by a politically-charged Federalist edict (The Alien and Sedition Acts), a brilliant diplomat who never quite learned how to temper his correspondence and paid for it, a man whose political philosophy ran so deep that it ended up robbing him temporarily of a friendship with another Founder, and one who built his legacy around the common man but bristled at what the common man was doing to shine the light of liberty in Paris simply because he was so personally and deeply grounded in the Virginia countryside.
Then, of course, there are the conflicting acts and views that Jefferson took with regard to race. He stated that "All men are created equal", yet expounded upon what he saw as the inherent differences between two races that could never be reconciled within the same republic. His relations with Sally Hemings appear to extend from his view of her as property. As part of the Territorial Ordinance, he proposed, unsuccessfully, that all lands won from Britain in the Revolutionary War be off-limits to slavery, yet according to Bernstein, during the debate on The Missouri Compromise argued forcefully against that accommodation in terms of the sovereign powers of the individual states, "...each of which would regulate its own affairs, including the decisions whether to accept or reject slavery in joining the Union, or to preserve or abolish slavery thereafter."
Bernstein's work is a riveting read about America's greatest Founding Father, the one who gave the most eloquent voice to the colonists' hopes and dreams, who unlike some of his contemporaries clearly saw the American experiment as something to be exported, and who, through several of his acts as president, set in motion a seemingly endless debate about the meaning of The Constitution and when and how it should be interpreted as America grows and changes.
Bernstein's "Thomas Jefferson" is not the last word on the author of The Declaration, but it is a wonderful place to begin.
Book Review: There must be better Jefferson biography out there
Summary: 3 Stars
Bought this book based on the reviews here. Enjoyed the book. But as some other reviewers said, it's not a page turner. The writing... is just ok. Having read the Founding Brothers (highly recommend it), this book somehow doesn't provide the richness in writing or in content.