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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A superb defence of Jefferson's importance in American life, January 27, 2005
This review is from: Thomas Jefferson: The American Presidents Series: The 3rd President, 1801-1809 (American Presidents (Times)) (Hardcover)
Few American presidents have experienced such a fluctuating reputation as president as has Thomas Jefferson. To a large extent this is also because of his pivotal role in the creation of the American republic. His contributions are by any standard vast: principal author of The Declaration of Independence, governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, ambassador to France following the War, first Secretary of State, second Vice President, third President, creator of the American party system (as well as of the old Republican party, that ironically evolved into the Democratic party under the leadership of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren), and author of a host of documents that have become part of the heart of American political literature. He is also viewed as the principal founder of liberalism in the United States, and is usually contrasted with John Adams, who is perceived as the founder of conservativism (though I personally find that Adams has virtually nothing in common with contemporary conservativism, which has less and less to do with Burkean ideals and concerns). This biography of Jefferson is by Joyce Appleby, one of the most renowned and respected of contemporary historians of the American Revolution and the early republic. In recent years many historians have taken aim at Jefferson to provide unflattering portraits, based either on the mercurial or inconsistent nature of his personality, the hypocrisy of his years as Adams's vice president, or his complex relations to slavery in general and Sally Hemmings in particular. Appleby does not want to ignore the very troubling aspects of Jefferson's career, especially on slavery--and who would want to, since to do so would be to tacitly endorse the "particular institution"--but she definitely wants to remind her readers both of why Jefferson is one of our greatest presidents and of his central role in fashioning some of the finest aspects of American society and political life.
It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that Appleby has written a biography that is intended to serve as a corrective to the work of historians like Joseph J. Ellis, who in books like AMERICAN SPHINX, FOUNDING BROTHERS, and PASSIONATE SAGE has been intensely critical of Jefferson on a host of grounds (indeed, Ellis portrays him as a bit of a hypocritical nutcase). Also, with a number of books that have rehabilitated John Adams, it has been inevitable that he be played off Jefferson in a way that is a bit more flattering to Adams than perhaps ought to be the case. The negative reviews of this book are, as a result, utterly incomprehensible. What to make of them? I'm not sure if the one-star reviewers haven't read this biography, or if they haven't read anything else about Jefferson. Several criticize this book for being "PC," whatever that means. Appleby points out that Jefferson remained a slaveholder despite thinking it was evil, that he consistently denigrated women in his writings, and that he very possibly had a complex relationship with Sally Hemmings. Could any good biographer ignore these issues? Would any civilized individual claim that Jefferson's positions can be defended? Of course not. More to the point, has any competent biographer ignored these issues? Did Ellis? Did Dumas Malone? These same reviewers assert that Appleby "bashes" Jefferson. Clearly, they are utterly ignorant of the greater literature on Jefferson and the Revolution. This is unquestionably a very positive portrait of Jefferson. She praises him despite his questionable views on slavery. In fact, my major complaint with the book is that she doesn't deal sufficiently with a host of actions in his life that are extremely dubious morally. For instance, he was not only the most disloyal vice president in American history, he persistently aided those journalists who savagely attacked Adams, and even assisted in one book that made scurrilous attacks on Adams's morals, all while denying to Adams's face that he was doing any of these things. As readers of other biographies of Jefferson are aware, he had a remarkable capacity for self-justifying some very dubious actions. He was a master of "the ends justifies the means" thinking. Appleby largely skirts over this, perhaps because of her limited amount of space, perhaps because she wants to emphasize his positive accomplishments instead.
Primarily, Appleby wants to explain how the American political system is essentially Jeffersonian through its very core. His insistence on a government by the people and for the people (Lincoln was in many ways the foremost Jeffersonian to follow in his footsteps)--as opposed to a patriarchal and powerful central government with an aristocracy making decisions for the many--won the war for the political heart of America. In other words, he was the author for the populism that has always since remained the great ideal of American politics, even if it has sometimes been subverted. His notions of equality of opportunity, of trusting the masses rather than the few, of stressing the general will over the particular will have become lock, stock, and barrel of American political life. She wants to show that America is essentially Jefferson in its very soul. Because most of her work has been done on the intellectual history of the Revolution, she portrays this as a struggle of ideas. All in all, I think she does a masterful job of showing why Jefferson is one of our most crucial presidents.
The book is not without flaws, though its flaws are never noted in the one and two star reviews found below, which all bizarrely and surreally criticize the book because it supposedly makes Jefferson look bad. In fact, in her attempt to make Jefferson good, she sometimes makes the Federalists look worse than they ought. For instance, she never sharply distinguishes between Adams and the Federalists, let alone Adams and Hamilton, Adam hating and detesting Hamilton far more than Jefferson ever did. She often writes as if Adams and Hamilton were of one mind. Furthermore, she repeats some caricatures of the past, such as the one that Adams engaged in a host of "midnight" judicial appointments, though biographers such as Paige Smith, McCullough, and Ellis have shown that in fact these appointments had been made over the course of weeks and months, and not on a single eve. She is too good of an historian to have made such a simple mistake. At the very least she should have indicated why the caricature is correct and Adams's biographers wrong. I find the positions of many of the Federalists to be complex to sum up as neatly as she has done here.
I would heartily recommend that anyone reading this book read it in conjunction with John Patrick Diggins biography of Adams from the same series. They say that history is written by the winners, but this is a case where the outcome is still in question. Adams and Jefferson represent two great, ongoing traditions in American life. Diggins sees more virtue in Adams and more vice in Jefferson than is plausible, and much the same can be said of Appleby's opposite portrait. But anyone wanting to read this book can rest assured that this is a first rate brief biography, one that wants to praise Jefferson, not merely bash him.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Actually Learned Just As Much About Jefferson From The "John Adams" Installment, November 16, 2009
This review is from: Thomas Jefferson: The American Presidents Series: The 3rd President, 1801-1809 (American Presidents (Times)) (Hardcover)
To be fair, this third installment of The American Presidents Series from Joyce Appleby does indeed provide some interesting information about both the personal life and administration of our nation's third President, Thomas Jefferson.
However, in terms of understanding the position of Jefferson in the context of the birth of our young nation, the "John Adams" installment of "American Presidents" is actually just as effective (if not more so) in defining the most important aspects of Jefferson's thoughts, philosophies, and actions towards politics. The disputes between Adams (pro-government) and Jefferson (almost no-government intrusion) laid the backbone for party politics in the United States, and while reading this book I never really felt as if Appleby gave Jefferson a fair shake in laying out "his side of the story".
Thus, I still recommend reading this book for the useful information it expouses about other aspects of Jeffersonian America, but if (like I was) you are looking for a continuation of the fascinating Adams/Jefferson philosophical battle, you may be disappointed.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Coming to Terms with Thomas Jefferson, June 12, 2008
This review is from: Thomas Jefferson: The American Presidents Series: The 3rd President, 1801-1809 (American Presidents (Times)) (Hardcover)
In her study for the American Presidents series, historian Joyce Appleby observes (p.132) that "America's most pressing history assignment is coming to terms with Thomas Jefferson." Indeed the variety of reviews on this site, and their varying assessments of Jefferson, themselves bear witness to the difficulties of understanding our third president. Appelby has written a nuanced, brief study of Jefferson's presidency with all its complexities and contradictions. She is more sympathetic to Jefferson than are many other scholars. Yet, she also lets the reader see Jefferson's flaws and inconsistencies. Her book gives the reader new to Jefferson a good starting point for understanding not only Jefferson's presidency but also some lasting issues in American political thought.
Jefferson wished to be remembered as the author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and as the Father of the University of Virginia. Appleby of necessity treads lightly on these and many other significant accomplishments to focus on Jefferson's fundamental ideas and on his presidency.
For Appleby, Jefferson was the founder of participatory democracy. While the other Founders, including Washington, Adams, and Hamilton tended towards an elitist concept of government in which the educated and well-born exercised disinterested political control, Jefferson sought a much broader base for political power and activity. Jefferson wanted to break down distinctions based on wealth or background for political participation. In practice, as Appelby points out, Jefferson expanded the scope of political participation to include all white males. The converse is that he continued to exclude African Americans, Native Americans, and women. But he still was far more inclusive than his contemporaries. And Jefferson laid the foundation, in his "self-evident" truth that "All men are created equal" for his successors over many years to see his own shortcomings and to pass beyond them.
On a broader level, Appleby insightfully describes Jefferson as the founder of one of the two main strains of American political thought.Jefferson was an enlightenment thinker who believed that people were essentially good and that they possessed the ability to understand and solve the issues confronting them. This is a key belief of most forms of political liberalism. Jefferson's opponents, exemplified by the Federalists and particularly by John Adams, evidenced a distrust of the human heart and an awareness of the mind's capacity for deception. They were inclined to put checks on the multitudes. Adams, as Jefferson's rival, has become the founding figure of the difficult and elusive part of American thought called conservatism. Jefferson was in his opposition to Washington and Adams and, in spite of himself, the founder of two-party politics in the United States.
Appelby begins her account of Jefferson's presidency with the election of 1800, one of the closest and least understood in our history. Jefferson assumed the presidency with the goal of limiting government and increasing the autonomy of the individual. Appleby describes Jefferson's astounding Louisiana Purchase, which greatly increased presidential power, as intended to promote Jeffersonian goals by opening up land to settlement by small, independent yeoman farmers.Appleby discusses well the important constitutional changes that were wrought during Jefferson's time, some by Jefferson himself -- as in the Louisiana Purchase -- and some by his opponent, Chief Justice John Marshall.
Jefferson's second term was plagued by his former Vice-president, Aaron Burr, who was tried for treason for attempting to lead a secession movement in the West. The nature of Burr's activities have always been obscure, but Jefferson actively sought his conviction. Burr was acquitted after a trial in which Chief Justice Marshall presided.
The closing years of Jefferson's presidency saw a great increase in tension between the United States and both Great Britain and France as the two European powers refused to respect American neutrality on the high seas. Late in his administration, Jefferson secured the enactment of an Embargo which resulted in great domestic divisiveness and near economic ruin. The Embargo would soon lead under President Madison to the War of 1812.
Appleby gives a brief account of Jefferson's life following his presidency, including the important correspondence he held with his former rival and friend, John Adams. Jefferson and Adams effected a reconciliation in the correspondence of their old age even though their philosophical differences remained. The reconciliation of these two Founders suggests that both Adams's conservatism and Jefferson's liberalism have much to contribute, in their insights and tensions, to a vibrant, thriving United States. Appleby's own sympathies in her fine thougtful study are clearly with Jefferson and with the liberal tradition.
Robin Friedman
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