Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History [Paperback]

Fawn M. Brodie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 1998

An ambitious, perceptive portrayal of a complex man, this best-selling biography broke new ground in its exploration of Jefferson's inner life.

Here for the first time we meet Jefferson as a man of feeling and passion. With a novelist's skill and meticulous scholarship, Fawn M. Brodie shows Jefferson as he wrestled with issues of revolution, religion, power, race, and love-ambivalences that exerted a subtle but powerful influence on his political writing and his decision making. The portrait that results adds a whole new depth to those of the past.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Thoroughly fascinating, opening vistas into Jefferson's life and thought that were fresh and exciting. A superbly written book, sparkling with new information and interpretation. (Ray A. Billington )

Brilliant, provocative. . . . A biography no one interested in the man or his times should miss. (Larry McMurtry - Washington Post Book World )

Powerful and touching. . . . The story of an intimate life hidden from and at odds with the public life. . . . Brodie has humanized Jefferson without in the least diminishing him. (Wallace Stegner )

An extraordinary human drama told with great insight, compassion, and literary skill. What history should be but seldom is. (Page Smith )

About the Author

Fawn M. Brodie was professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of several noted biographies, including Thomas Jefferson and The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton

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Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (April 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393317528
• ISBN-13: 978-0393317527
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #799,576 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read, June 1, 2001

By 

John Bonanno (Hiram, Maine USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (Paperback)

I titled this review "A Great Read" because of all the previous reviewers who said that (or words to that effect) this book is a great read BUT,....and there follows whatever psycho-sociological angst this work engendered in them, and then they proceeded to give it a low rating. This is an exceedingly well written and researched book which will give anyone some insight into our most complex and intelligent founding father. It is as honest as the evidence at hand allowed Fawn Brodie to be. The complicated relations between the white southern gentleman and his slaves reverberates to this day in our national unconscious. The only way to resolve these complexes and be free of them is to understand that they exist. If the problem of slavery so altered the inner life of one of our greatest Americans, how did it effect the more ordinary among us? New DNA testing has pretty much resolved the issue of Jefferson's progeny.

38 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellant portrait of a complex man, July 2, 2002

By 

Tech Junkie (Spring, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (Paperback)

I have read this book several times over the past ten years, and referred back to it after reading biographies by others who often slander Ms. Brodies work. It is an excellent portrait of what Mr. Jefferson may have been like, both flattering and not so flattering, but always fascinating. I always enjoy it because it captures so many people around Jefferson so well, such as his mentor George Wythe and his father-in-law John Wayles, both who took a slave concubine after becoming widowers. This book is about relationships and their social times.

Ms. Brodie weighed in on Jefferson being the father of Sally Hemming's children when it was not popular to taint him with human emotions. She would be proved right on at least one of Ms. Hemming's children, Eston, being fathered by the same Y chromosome that Jefferson's own father carried. Unfortunately Ms. Brodie did not live to see the scientific vindication of her research and insight. The Jefferson family has long claimed that Sally's children who favored Jefferson were fathered by nephew Samuel Carr, Jefferson's sister Martha's son. But Sam couldn't pass that Jefferson Y chromosome!

This book is a must read for everyone who is interested in understanding the Sage of Montecello. It makes the world of Jefferson come to life and allow the reader to walk in the times of his day, his friendships, enemies, depressions, joys, trials, and triumphs. Brodie takes the time to richly describe the other individuals in Jefferson's life, there by providing to the reader great scholarship that is immensely personal and interesting.

No single book can capture Jefferson's philosophy and accomplishments; but this book is a must read for a study of the personality of one of the most complex and interesting men in the history of our civilization.

It is the most fun book on Jefferson and his times that one can read.

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Man of genius, vision and wisdom, August 26, 2004

By 

William J Higgins III (Laramie, Wyoming United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (Paperback)

Dr. Brodie's biography on Thomas Jefferson is a wondrous piece of work, balancing both the personal and public lives of this remarkable man:
Writer of the Declaration of Independence, author of "Notes on the State of Virginia" and the "Constitution for Virginia", minister to France, war Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State under Washignton, Vice-President under John Adams, two term President of the United States, aquisition of the Louisiana Purchase, founder of the University of Virginia, horticulturist, architect and so much more. He spoke his mind and he spoke it for the people: "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
Without a doubt, Jefferson's private life was controversial and Brodie brings this to light. Although his personal life story reads like a soap opera, we see how both the personal and public worlds, at times, influence each other. Brodie unfolds his relationships with such women as Betsey Walker, Maria Cosway and the slave Sally Hemings, along with delving into his enemies and friends in public circles.
A lengthy but fascinating read and thanks to Dr. Brodie's tenacious research efforts, the reader gains a deep understanding into the life of this extaordinary man.