Understanding Thomas Jefferson |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Thomas Jefferson > Item 47
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Understanding Thomas Jefferson
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by E. M. Halliday and E.M. Halliday
Sales Rank: 177826
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List Price: $13.95
$13.95
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on 11-17-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 304 pages
Published by: Harper PerennialEdition: 1st Edition February 5, 2002
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0060957611
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0060957612
Book Dimensions:
8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
Weighs: 8.6 ounces
Product Review
Thomas Jefferson's life seems to be riddled with contradictions: he wrote "all men are created equal" yet owned hundreds of slaves; he feared mixing the races yet fathered children with a partially black slave. Joseph J. Ellis took this Jefferson-as-enigma approach in American Sphinx, which won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 1997. E.M. Halliday, however, argues that "the 'sphinx' approach tends to mystify rather than enlighten" and attempts to reconcile some of the contradictions in Understanding Thomas Jefferson.
Halliday starts off with a comprehensive sketch of Jefferson's life, from his father's death when he was 14 to his own death on July 4, 1826. Halliday describes Jefferson's college days, his passionate marriage, his trip to Paris, and, of course, his relationship with Sally Hemings, his slave and concubine.
Halliday's analysis of the Jefferson-Hemings affair is refreshing, given that many biographers have felt Jefferson lost all interest in sex after his wife's death (or, to quote Nick Nolte, who played the man in Jefferson in Paris, "The historians like to think that after Jefferson's wife died, his dick fell off"). Halliday lays out all the evidence, also noting that "most biographers have paid insufficient attention to the probability that some of her traits, of both appearance and character, were reminiscent of her half sister, Jefferson's greatly beloved wife." He then criticizes the "blinkered historians" who ignored or dismissed ample evidence of the affair--that is, before DNA testing proved that Jefferson fathered at least one of Hemings's children.
A series of related essays follows the biography, including a clear-eyed view of the relationship between history and fiction. Throughout the book, Halliday writes in a chatty, almost gossipy tone, noting the Marquis de Lafayette's "formidable expanse of forehead," describing Jefferson's "tall, lean but muscular figure," musing that "September in Paris, while less celebrated in love songs than April, can be a wonderfully sexy time of year." Entertaining, informative, and eminently readable, Understanding Thomas Jefferson will leave readers feeling that they do. --Sunny Delaney
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This book has great merits as well as great flaws. Its merits include the author's commonsense, balanced approach to his subject, his solid grasp of the material, and his effervescent style. Halliday, a longtime editor at American Heritage and author of previous works on the poet John Berryman and on the Allied invasion of Soviet Russia in 1918 19, persuasively argues that historians Andrew Burstein (The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist, 1995) and Joseph J. Ellis (American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson) are wrong to claim that Jefferson was a bundle of unfathomable contradictions and mysteries. Halliday maintains that many of Jefferson's apparent contradictions are understandable, given his position in society and the era in which he lived. Despite Jefferson's failings in his views on blacks and women, Halliday says that his championship of human liberty gives him a deserved place on Mount Rushmore. The book's most serious flaw is its scope. Over half of the book is devoted to Jefferson's sex life (or lack thereof), particularly with his slave Sally Hemmings; this preoccupation is compounded by the author's overuse of words like erotic. (In two places he even notes that the weather was "sexy.") The book says almost nothing about Jefferson's work in the Continental Congress or his two terms as President. Recommended for greater public libraries. T.J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ., New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Understanding Thomas Jefferson (Hardcover)
I can't improve on the scathing reviews by the experts. I can underscore the lack of solid evidence and lackaday assembly of the few facts there are. Try to find one crisp summary of Mr. Halliday's thesis anywhere in this book. You won't. Instead, you'll find a lazy summer day's read, drifting down a river of possibles. A little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit more back over here, some different stuff there... Who edited this thing for him? Along those same lines, the book's organization could use some work. The "essays" making up the second half of the book are as muddled as the "history" of the first half. They should get their own "Part II" instead of simply having different chapter names. Throughout, compute the ratio of "might/could have/may" to "did/was/had" and you'll understand how imprecise a view of Jefferson this is. Halliday himself muses on the transience of historical understanding. Better for him to take it to heart, and focus on the hard facts than try to read sheep's entrails to discern what might have been. Certainly Jefferson deserves better than this! Certainly American Heritage deserves better than this! By the way, wouldn't this suffice, instead of 250 pages of gumming the subject to death?: 1. TJ had a 10-year, very sexual marriage to Martha. He may have promised her on her deathbed not to remarry. 2. Sally Hemings was Martha's half-sister. 3. Perhaps out of family relation and resemblance, or perhaps out of his horniness and her availability, Tom/Sally were perfect for each other. 4. Why else would TJ have freed her offspring? He freed none of his other slaves; instead they were sold after his death to cover his debts. Buy the book. Read the book. Don't believe you "understand" TJ any better after having done so.
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Understanding Thomas Jefferson
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Price: $13.95
Updated on 11-17-2008.
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