Name: Thomas Jefferson
ISBN: 9781400067664

Thomas Jefferson

In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history.

What Hacker News says

markdog12Jul 2017

For anyone looking for a good book on Jefferson, https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-Power-Jon-Meacham/dp...

The competition between Jefferson and Hamilton is also detailed in https://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Hamilton-Ron-Chernow/dp/159..., and it doesn't paint such a great picture of Jefferson. (Alexander Hamilton lived one of the most incredible lives ever. Anyone interested in history needs to read this book)

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famouswafflesJul 2024

I'm not sure why a rock or piece of wood is the bar here. The fact is nearly no-one in the Americas would call or describe Sub-Saharan Africans as Intelligent.

Thomas Jefferson who generally seemed to oppose slavery says this in his book, "Notes on the State of Virginia" (1785):

"In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection."

"Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous."

Doesn't even sound like he's talking about the same species. We can scarcely agree on the intelligence of other humans. Let's not even get into the topic of animals.

So the idea that intelligence will manifest and we'll all just see it and agree...Yeah No.

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willciprianoSep 2021

Just finished last night a series of lectures on Thomas Jefferson[0] and I believe he felt the primary countermeasure to this problem was a limited federal government. In his time the federal government was dramatically smaller and the average person had nearly zero interaction with it during their lives. State and local governments can be moved away from, and this voting with your feet is an effective deterant to tyranny. The US long ago shrugged off the sort of republicanism Jefferson witnessed in his time and never really replaced it with anything else.

[0]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1966657.Thomas_Jefferson

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism

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