The History Book Club discussion
PRESIDENTIAL SERIES
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INTRODUCTION
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Mod
The study guide looks tempting. Thanks again, Bentley.
Mod
His Excellency George Washington
Joseph J. Ellis
I've read His Excellency as well. Good book. I like how it covered Washington's early early years and his Presidental and retirement years without glossing over the famous Revolution Years. Well balanced, in my opinion. It is part of the reason I'm looking forward to Ellis' treatment of Jefferson.
Mod
I agree with you, Elizabeth. Ellis' bio of Washington was an enjoyable read. Another book of his that I enjoyed is Founding Brothers which devotes one chapter each to a number of the Founding Fathers. I think it begins with a look at Hamilton and Burr.
Hi DhenningI just started to read Founding Brothers and so far it has been interesting. The first chapter on Hamilton and Burr had some interesting insights that make you thing in a different perspective how these men valued their honor so enormously.
Mod
I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up on our up and coming read, American Sphinx by Joseph Ellis.For those of you who own, or plan on acquiring, a hardcover 1st edition of this book published by Knopf, there were "several silent revisions" made to the Vintage paperback edition in April 1998. I quote Ellis on page xix of the revised edition. "The Vintage edition requires more extensive revisions in light of the publication of a DNA study by Dr. Eugene Foster that significantly changes the terms of the long-standing debate over Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings. Ellis states that he made 4 substantial changes, and outlines where those changes were made and also states that he changed his mind in light of this study.
I do own a 1st edition hardcover, and was lucky enough to find the Vintage edition the other day for almost nothing. By having both editions, it's very revealing how we can go back and see what changes were made and why.
Also, I would like to strongly emphasize that both editions are not required to participate in our discussion. And I hope it doesn't have to be repeated that either edition will do just fine. I just want to let everyone know that there were changes made in the newer Vintage edition that we should be aware of.
The Knopf hardcover edition of American Sphinx by Joseph Ellis:
The Vintage paperback edition of American Sphinx by Joseph Ellis:
Thanks, Joe. I haven't gotten mine yet, but I'll probably pick up the paperback. I'll be interested to hear the comparisons with the 1st edition hardcover.
I picked up the paperback edition over the holidays, and I am really looking forward to starting this one.
Sera wrote: "I picked up the paperback edition over the holidays, and I am really looking forward to starting this one."Thanks for commenting, Sera.
During my preparation this past week or two, I have been constantly asking myself how others will comment on this interesting fellow. Jefferson was a very good choice as our next subject. This book also fits in very well with the other books that we are currently reading.
Mod
Bentley
Bentley wrote: "For those of you who may be taking a peek at what is coming up very soon in the Presidential Series, Joe has put together the syllabus which I will post in the syllabi section. Be sure to take a l..."Where do I find the syllabi section?
Mod
FIRST, THE WELCOME FOLDER
SECOND, SPOTLIGHTED TOPICS
THIRD, SYLLABI FOR DISCUSSIONS
Thanks Bentley. This is my first book discussion and I'm looking forward to it.
Mod
The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (other topics)American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (other topics)
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (other topics)
His Excellency: George Washington (other topics)
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Joseph J. Ellis (other topics)Joseph J. Ellis (other topics)
Joseph J. Ellis (other topics)
Note: (you may have to sign in first)
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/...
Study Guide:
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-am...
Joseph J. Ellis
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (STAPLES):
"In 10 years as an essayist for this newspaper, I have never been so blistered and rained upon as after writing about Thomas Jefferson. The barest mention of the man brings E-mail, letters and phone calls on a volcanic scale. First come professors picking nits and grinding axes. Then come gun nuts and militarists claiming his words as a license to blow up buildings and overthrow the Government. Debunkers condemn him as a bigot and a hypocrite for drafting the Declaration of Independence while holding slaves. Bank presidents, cabdrivers and college freshmen will have their say -- as if speaking on Jefferson were their sovereign right.
This kind of passion bypasses Washington, Adams and Lincoln. When Americans speak of Jefferson, they speak of a personal relationship with either the demigod who conjured up democracy or the man whose failure to speak out against slavery wounded the Republic beyond measure. The sense of intimacy with Jefferson is found even in people who are generally cool and detached about history. In Ken Burns's PBS documentary ''Thomas Jefferson,'' for example, the historian John Hope Franklin resorted to the first person on Jefferson's toleration of slavery. ''I am a forgiving man, therefore I forgive him,'' Mr. Franklin said. ''But I remember that what he did was a transgression against mankind.''
The biographies of Jefferson already are legion. But Joseph J. Ellis's ''American Sphinx'' is a brief and elegant return to Monticello. Mr. Ellis, a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College, is a remarkably clear writer, mercifully free of both the groveling and the spirit of attack that have dominated the subject in the past. As a biographer of John Adams, he is well suited to this mission. Adams was Jefferson's predecessor in the White House, his bitter rival in his middle years and his confidant toward the end, when both became aware of what the union and their friendship would mean for posterity. ''American Sphinx'' is fresh and uncluttered but rich in historical context.
Mr. Ellis reminds us that Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence while still a foppish young man with limited political skill. He was congenitally shy about speaking in public, even while the Continental Congress debated and edited his prized declaration. John Adams said, ''During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.''
''American Sphinx'' is not about an inexorable rise to power. It shows the workaday way that a flawed mortal ''managed his way through life.'' As Mr. Ellis tells it, ''He was never a legend in his own time, always a controversial figure who combined great depth with great shallowness, massive learning with extraordinary naivete, piercing insights into others with daunting powers of self-deception.''
Monticello was self-deception incarnate -- and a metaphor for what happens when Olympian ideals meet grim reality. To build a plantation on a mountain was foolish in the first place; level ground was scarce, and the soil quality poor. A plantation in name only, Monticello could not sustain itself, much less turn a profit. While regarding Government debt as a peril to the Republic, Jefferson ran up enormous personal debts of his own. Some debt was inherited; some stemmed from bad investments and ill-advised loan guarantees. Still, Jefferson was a shopaholic, ransacking Europe for paintings, silver and furniture. Monticello was a perpetual work in progress, built and rebuilt -- mainly by the labor of slaves -- and stocked with treasures, books and fine wines. Much was acquired on credit.
The stately manor among the trees bore no obvious evidence of the slaves who helped to build and maintain it. Jefferson designed his mountain home, Mr. Ellis says, ''to make slavery almost invisible.'' He was disposed to look the other way. He died leaving behind a staggering debt. His creditors converged and dismembered Monticello, auctioning off human property along with the portraits and silver candlesticks.
The historian David Brion Davis was on the mark when he said Jefferson had only ''a theoretical interest'' in promoting the cause of abolition. Jefferson spoke intermittently of abolition -- but he came to favor it only if African-Americans could be deported or somehow made to disappear from the lands they had made prosperous for their masters. His aversion to the idea of a multiracial state was made clear in ''Notes on the State of Virginia,'' which advanced wacky, racialist views that presaged the modern eugenics movement.
Slavery and the Declaration of Independence can in no way be reconciled. Even so, the debate on slavery over the last decade or so has taken on the character of a witch hunt into the past -- with Jefferson as its sole object, as if burning him at the stake would purge us of racial poison.
In truth, the Founding Fathers together colluded to keep slavery intact. Powerful figures like Adams tried to nudge Jefferson on the subject, but did not press the issue forcefully enough to make a difference. George Washington reaped a profit from his slaves during his lifetime -- then freed them in his will. Magnanimity after death was easier, and cheaper. There is lots of culpability to go around.
Jefferson's fear of public speaking made him ''one of the most secluded and publicly invisible Presidents in American history,'' Mr. Ellis writes. He worked in a ''self-consciously unimperial executive style'' that turned decision making into a process of drafting and revising texts, with his Cabinet members serving as interlocutors. He disliked public disagreement, and went to great lengths to discourage it. He developed a distinctly modern style of politics, in statements deliberately written to let different audiences hear what they wished to hear.
He saw the world as if good and evil were the only possibilities. Republicans were good, Federalists were bad; these truths, too, he saw as self-evident. His absolutism led him to some questionable judgments. Among them was retaining the scandalmonger James Callender to sling mud at Federalist enemies, including John Adams. In a pamphlet entitled ''The Prospect Before Us,'' Callender savaged Adams as a ''corrupt and despotic monarch,'' and received letters of thanks from Jefferson himself. When Jefferson refused him a political job, Callender returned the favor by circulating the tale of Jefferson's alleged liaison with his slave Sally Hemings. When Jefferson denied having salaried the pamphleteer, Callender produced the incriminating letters. The story of ''Dashing Sally,'' as Mr. Ellis writes, is ''the longest-running mini-series in American history'' -- making Jefferson the Bill Clinton of his time. The evidence is so sparse that we will never know with certainty what happened. Mr. Ellis treats the story mainly in a footnote, which is pretty much what it deserves. The question of whether or not Jefferson slept with a slave is a titillating diversion and nothing more.
JEFFERSON'S obsession with ideal forms worked against him in his personal life. But, propelled by one of the most powerful writing styles in our history, this same obsession blossomed into the most resounding statement of human freedom that the Enlightenment gave us. The natural rights section of the Declaration -- the most famous words in American history -- reflected the belief that personal freedom was guaranteed by God Himself. The fact that we as a nation have fallen short of its full exercise diminishes this principle not in the least -- and leaves the distinct possibility that we may yet grow into it.
Mr. Ellis reminds us that Jefferson was flawed like the rest of us. Still, he gave the nation its basic shape -- and the ideas that stand as its most enduring legacy.
Drawing
Source:
Brent Staples, who writes about politics and culture for the editorial page of The New York Times, is the author of a memoir, ''Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White.''
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/23/boo...
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