American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson

Rating:
Summary: Sterling Silver
Review: "American Sphinx" by Joseph P. Ellis is sterling silver. It dissects the character of Thomas Jefferson in a wonderfully readable presentation of America's third President. No wonder this book was a prize winning work on history when it first came out. I recommend your making sure you don't miss this one.

I also recommend you go on to read Norman Thomas Remick's "West Point: Thomas Jefferson: Character Leadership Education" for something different both about, and from, Thomas Jefferson.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding history lesson
Review: The beauty of this book is that Ellis allows no bias of his own to show through. He merely lays out the facts of Jefferson's life and philosophy and lets the reader draw conclusions. But he does give us much food for thought, and it is fascinating to see how, over the years, different political factions have attempted to claim the Jeffersonian mantle. Among the book's other treasures is the portrait of the friendship-turned- enmity between Jefferson and John Adams, who, along with wife Abigal, emerge as wholly witty, fascinating characters. The two men, former conspirators turned rivals, died on the same day, July 4, 1826.

Forget the recent spate of spiteful, one-sided books that attempt to paint Jefferson as a hypocritical reprobate only and read this fine narrative of a great and complex man.

This is history as it should be written - lively, provocative, and compelling.

Rating:
Summary: Thomas Jefferson Survives
Review: If you've read about the Founding Fathers, you can't help but notice that Thomas Jefferson has an eerie elusive quality that the others just don't seem to possess. You can figure out Ben Franklin, George Washington, James Madison, etc.. Jefferson, however, seems to be someone who you can't quite pin down or so easily lay claim to by today's standards. It probably has something to do with, as Ellis states in the book, the fact that he was far more inclined to rhetoric and theory than he was to the tedious gears of hand-on politics.

I was expecting this book to cross the line in relation to dragging Jefferson into the present and beating him up a bit, but it kept within reasonable boundaries without either unrealistic hero worship or a foolish attempt at character assasination. Very readable and informative.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling Study of a Founding Father
Review: Of all the historical characters I have ever read about, Thomas Jefferson by far is the most complex. His entire life seems to be a contradiction. The writer of the Declaration of Independence, yet he owned slaves all his life, refusing to free them even in his will. Opposed to any kind of centralized federal government, yet under his presidential administration, the US doubled in size with the Federal government purchase of the Louisiana territory. Author Ellis does a superb job of noting these contradictions and many other weaknesses displayed by Jefferson throughout his career. A Francophile, Jefferson was totally unable to predict the violence of the French Revolution, even though he was living in Paris during the time. During the American Revolution, Jefferson wrote the Declaration and then disappeared to Monticello, then leaving men like Adams and Washington to put his ideas into action. This particularly charactertizes the actions of Jefferson- his thoughts were so idealistic as to be incompatible with reality. This is opposed to Adams, a thoroughly pragmatic man. Time and again, author Ellis contrast Jefferson to Adams and in the majority of the instances, Jefferson loses. Yet, the American public is still drawn to Jefferson while Adams does not seem to generate that kind of esteem. Why? Jefferson was an idealist, who talked about the moral goodness of man and thought the human race able to function with very little in the ways of laws, government oversite, etc. These ideas were portayed by Jefferson in his writings which fed the higher nature in all of us. Men like Adams were much more pragmatic- ideas are fine, but what can we make that will actually work in the real world?

This book does a wonderful job of trying to define the character of Jefferson and the title American Sphinx is more accurate. I don't believe we can truly know Jefferson and perhaps that's what makes him one of the most interesting of the Founding Fathers.

Rating:
Summary: A very fair and intriguing book
Review: This book was a very fair and fascinating look at a very complex, often paradoxical, yet amazing man. With the way both conservatives and liberals fight over the true legacy of Thomas Jefferson, it was very refreshing to read a book, by a great writer, that takes a very fair, honest and direct look at Jefferson's good and bad sides. Any fair reader will come away from this book with a great appreciation of a brilliant man's struggle for what he thought was best for his young country. Jefferson had many views that many in our modern society quickly dismiss as ridiculous, hypocritical, or racist, but Ellis is very careful to put himself in the place of an observer from that era rather than some politically correct, elitist critic that so many of us are inundated by today. Yet at the same time Ellis is far from a blindly praising Jefferson disciple. This is a great biography, that flows quickly, and is very fair and worthy of one of this country's greatest men.

Rating:
Summary: a better understanding
Review: I imagine that in order to spend months and years researching and writing about an historical figure you must admire that person immensely, otherwise it would be terribly difficult to retain any interest. In most biographies, this usually translates into a deification of the subject. Not so in Joseph J. Ellis' AMERICAN SPHINX: THE CHARACTER OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.

I'll confess that Jefferson has not always been one of my favorite founding fathers. I have always thought of him as duplicitous, racist, anachronistic in his thinking, vain, and cowardly in a way. As a New Yorker, I've always been irked by his bad-mouthing of the city, and by his insistence that the capitol of the new nation be moved from here to Washington, D.C. [Good riddance, by the way. We did just fine without being the capitol city, thank you very much ;-) ] And as I am a devout admirer of Alexander Hamilton... need I say more?

After reading Ellis' other great book, FOUNDING BROTHERS, I began to get a more rounded look at Jefferson, one that shed a little more light on the human forces that may have been working on him. Then I read McCullough's brilliant biography of Jefferson's close friend (at times), John Adams. This led me to read this biography, and I am glad I did. I finally was given a better understanding of the sage of Monticello. Ellis does an admirable job of conveying an honest and balanced view of the chief author of the Declaration of Independence, without resorting to hero-worship, as do most biographers. At times, the writing was very moving, especially as Jefferson's loved ones began dying around him. I'm still not crazy about the guy, but I have a better appreciation of him.

Ellis' writing is brisk, loaded with telling anecdotes, and never attempts to impress the reader with the research he has done. Other biographers would do well to follow Joseph Ellis' example. And lovers of American History would do well to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Dry, but overall interesting
Review: This book took me about four months to read. I kept picking other books up and forgetting about this one. So it is not addictively readable, to say the least. In fact, it was difficult for me to read more than 15 pages at a time. I would find my attention wandering or my mind falling asleep.

Dryness and drab writing aside, the book in the end was interesting. It is not a conventional biography. Unlike historians such as David McCulloch, Joseph Ellis digs deep into the story and into the character of Thomas Jefferson. It does not follow Jefferson from birth to death, chronicling life events. Instead, Ellis picks seminal points of Jefferson's life: his move to Paris, the Constitutional Convention, his stint as President, and his retirement to Monticello, and then examines Jefferson's attitudes, actions, and writings from these time periods to create a picture of the man. It answers the question "Who was Thomas Jefferson?" more thoroughly than any biography I have ever read.

Ellis's Jefferson is not hugely likeable, but is very human. Ellis certainly succeeds in knocking Jefferson fro his hallowed pedastal, but only in making him human and fully fleshed, which in the end only can do Jefferson justice.

After finishing this book (finally), I feel I have a pretty clear picture of Jefferson and his legacy, which makes me feel this read was very worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: Sterling Silver
Review: "American Sphinx" by Joseph P. Ellis is sterling silver. It dissects the character of Thomas Jefferson in a wonderfully readable presentation of America's third President. No wonder this book was a prize winning work on history when it first came out. I recommend your making sure you don't miss this one.

I also recommend you go on to read Norman Thomas Remick's "West Point: Thomas Jefferson: Character Leadership Education" for something different both about, and from, Thomas Jefferson.

Rating:
Summary: Not the place to start on Jefferson
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was very easy to read and very informative. The book does a good job of staying away from hero-worship that so often slants the biographies that may fill a Jeffersonian student's shelves. This is NOT the book to read, though, if you are not already familiar with Jefferson. The book is not a biography and it skips over many of the events in his life. For instance, there is nothing at all on Jefferson's second term as president and very little on his time in the state govt of VA. BUT that is the intent of the book. It is meant to give snapshots of his thinking and personality that the biographies normally do not capture. The book uses much of the prolific subject's writings to make his points, as would be expected of this type of book, and he rarely if ever misquotes Jefferson. Ellis also does not harp on the rumor and gossip surrounding the Sally Hemming subject, which is refreshing. There are many books on this controversial and impossible-to-resolve issue, and Ellis only devotes 5 pages as an addendum at the end of the book to gloss over the Hemming basics.

Rating:
Summary: Clash of Titans between Theory and Practice
Review: Unlike David McCullough in his superb "John Adams", Joseph J. Ellis has a hard to get into style that does turn Thomas Jefferson into a sphinx. The audience can have a difficult time to understand the similarities and differences existing between Jefferson and John Adams. Jefferson was a study in contradictions. He was often not practicing what he was preaching. For that reason, many people can reasonably claim to be the spiritual heirs of Jefferson.