Just as engaging and more wide-ranging than Annette Gordon-Reed's take on Jefferson and his slaves, Wiencek's work underscores and reiterates the hypocritical tension between Jefferson's professed views on slavery and his actions on slavery. Jefferson can claim to want to free his slaves, then plead poverty as to why he can't; he can claim Black people do not have the rigor to function in society, while training his slaves as chefs and artisans, and dismiss Phillis Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker. And, the letter written by his own slave Hannah. His chapter on Sally Hemings is more sedate and even-handed than Gordon-Reed's too. Wiencek demolishes the mythos of the saintly Jefferson, but in a way that does not come off as a screed or philippic. You can still see redeeming features in the times, in the Founders, and the American experiment. You can wince at the bad while still recognizing the good. ( )

This was significantly better than the George Washington biography. Mainly because the author doesn't like Jefferson and so is able to be more honest.
Slave owners are monsters, Founding Fathers or not they are monsters. TJ was simply smarter than GW. He knew how to write deceptively. He knew how to hide or obfuscate his true beliefs under wordy enlightened sounding explanations. He lied a wjole heckuvlot. That this view persists is due largely to a supersize portion of White Fragility helped by racists practices that work to keep non whites out of academia. Pretty much every sin that the author accuses TJ biographers of making he does the same in his biography of GW. White Fragility is why I try to avoid white historians. It's hard even from this great distance in time to accurrately admit how this country was founded and to hold the founders accountable for whites most especially men.
I learned a lot about how slavery functioned on Virginia Plantations during this time period. Originally enslaved persons lived cramped in cabins with no family members. There is a pit that exists under the floorboards where enslaved peoples must have kept their possessions. Later TJ changes the production on Monticello and enslaved persons have family cabins and this hiding place disappears.
Most shocking for me is that enslaved persons were consumers. They worked sun up to sunset for TJ, labor for which they were not paid-not even in food, clothing or housing. Enslaved peoples grew large gardens and raised chickens in their downtimes. The produce and eggs, chickens were then sold to the big house and in town. Enslaved peoples used the profits to buy clothes, dishes, etc. They were self supporting in their downtimes.
Also TJ didn't want skilled white workers from Europe. He feared they would want what he has and challenge the status quo. His plan was to train enslaved peoples with skilled trades, which he did. Those folks go onto to build Monticello in fine, skilled detail work. They build the White House, twice, and most of Washington DC. Yet TJ insists that 'blacks' and paying for their care is why he dies in debt. In truth he was bad with money and kept his slaves because exploiting intelligent humans is a profitable enterprise, which is why prison labor is so profitable today. Skilled laborers with exploitable earnings. The few slaves TJ frees in his will work in the area for decades in attempts to buy their spouses and kids. One family is broken up amongst 8 separate buyers. The human cost is staggering. The Founding Fathers are unredeemable. ( )

I don't have any original thoughts to share on the subject of this book, I think it's all been said. Every American should read it; every American should have the understanding that our founding fathers were flawed human beings, who despite themselves created a form of government--or better yet, the ideal of a form of representative government--that may or may not stand the test of time. That they were able to do so AT ALL is a tribute to their determination. Jefferson understood that the peculiar institution he at first wanted to eradicate, but was unable to, would one day exact a tragically heavy price from those who finally did eradicate it. Because he later ignored this fact both personally and politically blackens his reputation irretrievably, in my opinion.

Intelligence and rationality are no innate antidotes to bigotry and racism. ( )

One of the best books on Thomas Jefferson I've encountered, which furthermore tackles the tough issue of slavery and how Jefferson thought about and treated his slaves. The author thoroughly discusses Jefferson contradictory writings on slavery and brings in numerous stories about Jefferson's slaves and how their lives were lived. Sally Hemings, Jefferson's most well-known slave, is discussed but takes a backseat to the rest of the slaves on Jefferson's plantation, and the author gives a much more wider depiction of slavery under Jefferson than some other works. ( )

The author does a great job throughout most of the book describing the life of the slave at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's plantation home. The first 75% of the book draws a great picture of Jefferson's ability to separate himself from the cruelty that is imposed on those whom he owns. Though it was interesting reading, the last 25% of the book digresses into a discussion of whether or not Jefferson fathered a child with Sally Hemings. I would rather the author continue with the original discussion. Regardless of this detour, it was still a keen insight into one of the nation's founding fathers. ( )