Thomas Jefferson by R. B. Bernstein Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Thomas Jefferson
Book Review: A Concise Biography of A Founding Father
Summary: 5 Stars
R.B. Bernstein set out to write a concise biography of a man who may be the most influential American ever. While a concise biography will no doubt omit some facts, Bernstein tells the important facts of the Thomas Jefferson story with commendable skill. Additionally, most biographies tend to be dry reading material. I found this particular biography to be a real page turner.Thomas Jefferson is best known for his interest in philosophy and issues of individual rights. He is credited with having significant influence in the writing of the early documents in American history. Most specifically, he is given credit for the Declaration of Independence and the addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. Because of Jefferson's importance in politics, Bernstein acknowledges all of the positive and negative highlights of his political career. Much of the mudslinging discussed in the book is reminiscent of contemporary politics.
However, there is much more to the reluctant 3rd President. Bernstein paints picture of a man who hated the bickering nature of politics, preferring the his time to his studies and writing while managing his plantation in Virginia. His obsession was the legendary Monticello, which he designed and continually redesigned.
Bernstein pays little attention to Jefferson's relationship to Sally Hemings except in the epilogue. While some may argue that this omission detracts from the quality of the book, I would disagree. Bernstein chooses to focus on the man and politician rather than his sexual escapades. Even when his seemingly conflicting views of slavery are brought into focus, these facts are not essential to the Jefferson story. When his concern for human rights is put into focus, any discrepancies in his views are only a reflection of his era.
All of the essential facts of Jefferson are discussed in this handsome book. I would highly recommend this book either as a reference book for school papers or a leisurely read about the life of a truly great American.
Book Review: Impressive accomplishment
Summary: 5 Stars
THOMAS JEFFERSON is an impressive accomplishment. Bernstein's masterful grasp of our third president's life and legacy allows him to peel back Jefferson's accomplishments and ambiguities layer by layer, while respecting the essential mystery at the core of his being. Generalists will hail this thorough and concise account of this multifaceted individual. Historians will appreciate Bernstein's meticulous use of source materials, his thorough familiarity with the latest scholarship, and his professional detatchment (unlike so many, this author does not obscure Jefferson with his own agenda, preferring to let his sources speak. As a wordsmith as well as an historian, I particularly relished how this book elicits one of America's gretest writers in language both incisive and elegant.Book Review: Enough already!
Summary: 4 Stars
This public display of reviewers' bickering neither honors nor dignifies the person we all revere, Thomas Jefferson. He, too, was sometimes critical and impatient, even manipulative. He also suffered more disappointments and losses than most and was a product of his circumstances, trapped in the events and standards of his time.At the very least, however, Jefferson read and listened to others and tried to understand their side of issues. With faith in common people and common causes he directed his gifts--during what he saw as practical opportunities--toward advocacy and action in their behalf. He didn't always succeed, but when he did the results were spectacular.
Will there ever be another like him?
Last evening a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings notified me, "Today I gratefully passed my Masters Thesis Defense!" Shannon Lanier will receive both a Bachelor of Science degree in electronic media production and a Master of Arts degree in media management from Kent State University next month. Shannon, a gifted and extremely likeable young man, co-authored JEFFERSON'S CHILDREN in 2000 and has done more than most to try to reunite the Jefferson and Hemings families.
To honor my friend Shannon and all in his blended family, I'll put aside petty resentments. R.B. Bernstein, for all his self-confessed "kvetching" and self-doubts and his shots at me, deserves more than the one star I awarded him, but I can't go for five. I think he would agree that in current affairs we're seeing too much of settling differences by shooting instead of listening to one another. We can all set a better example for those who will soon inherit a world we're currently mismanaging.
For my part in this, I know that (1) anyone's vetting of my book DIAGNOSING JEFFERSON will reveal no misstep in my scholarship, though they can argue with my hypotheses, that (2) my descriptions of the compatibility of Jefferson's traits with Asperger's are well grounded and validated by experts, that (3) my work was edited by one of the best in the business--Hillel Black, that (4) the book has inspired countless young people with the condition, and several have told me it turned their lives around, and that (5) those who belittle the work without doing more than leaf through it may be surprised when they take the trouble to read it.
Book Review: Superficial Effort
Summary: 1 Stars
This author has given us a Thomas Jefferson made of extraordinarily light cardboard. Given the reputation of Oxford University Press, I'm surprised its imprint is on such a superficial effort.R.B. Bernstein committed factual errors and misrepresented an important source. When I finish reading this small work, I'll likely make further helpful observations.
For now let's deal with a few errors of fact. The author called daughter Maria Jefferson's husband her "distant cousin." I find significance in the easily traceable fact that John Wayles Eppes was actually Maria's first cousin. (See Malone I:432, and work it out.)
In listing Sally Hemings's "recorded" children, Bernstein made a factual omission of Edy, born 1796, entered in Monticello records, and dead in infancy.
Jefferson's mentally-challenged sister Elizabeth wasn't older than Thomas, as Bernstein claimed, but was in fact younger.
There are other date and age errors. They may seem trivial, but in the aggregate they raise questions of credibility. Unless one were to verify details and references in the entire work (which the publisher should have required of the author), one can't know where else or how else Bernstein may have failed his readers.
Bernstein likes to quote John Adams as having said, "Facts are stubborn things." Bergen Evans, an authority on quotations, attributed those words not to Adams but to Ebenezer Elliott, author of a work titled Field Husbandry.
As for misrepresenting a source, the author used Sally Hemings's son Madison's testimony about her relationship with Jefferson. On the subject of Sally's surrendering freedom in France to return with Jefferson to slavery in Virginia, Madison's words are essentially all we have. Bernstein wrote, "She exacted from Jefferson a promise that, if she returned to Virginia, he would free any children he fathered with her." That isn't what Madison Hemings said. Madison said, "(S)he refused to return with him. To induce her to do so he (Jefferson) promised her...that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one..." Clearly there's no evidence here that she exacted, insisted, or demanded (see Webster). Instead, Jefferson offered. Big difference, one that credits the character of each. So why the Bernstein spin? And what other spins are contained in this hurried effort?
Book Review: Author Denies the Public Valuable Research Material
Summary: 2 Stars
The author states that Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson and Sally Hemings were half-sisters, an old unsubstantiated belief for many years. This would have been a good place to inform his readers that his new 2003 book does not contain reference to a most revealing 2002 book, "Anatomy of a Scandal, Thomas Jefferson and the Sally Story" by Rebecca L. and James F. McMurry, Jr. Their long and deep research of this issue resulted in no proof of this claim whatsoever. Mr. Bernstein has conveniently cited other media and some in academia and a favorite foundation "OPINIONS" and not factual research of the issue. He conveniently denies you, the reader, that 13 top notch scholars released their Scholars Commission Report in April 2001 debunking most of what had earlier been reported as truth in the media. The Monticello Report was exposed as being biased and not being balanced and a Minority Report was NOT released originally as part of their study, thus denying the public valuable research. He does not tell you that Madison Hemings statements were greatly "torn apart" and analyzed and found to be incorrect on several occasions. He does not tell you that members of the Hemings Family REFUSE to permit the gathering of valuable DNA which would cast doubt on whether Madison and Eston were brothers with the same father. Yet he tries to belittle "Jefferson defenders" who would dare suggest that Sally's children would have multiple fathers.
In my opinion, the author joins several other recent academic members who have chosen the "Historical Revisionist" route to be politically correct.
Herbert Barger
Jefferson Family Historian
Assistant to Dr. E.A. Foster on the Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study.