Thomas Jefferson - The Art of Power

Thomas Jefferson – The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

Thomas Jefferson is one of those historical figures that many authors have already written about, and will probably have more books written about him in the future.  So one almost has to ask, “Is this book really necessary?”  I would have to answer both yes and no.

This book is really a “bird’s eye” view of the man.  We get an overall picture of the man and his life without going into too much detail.  Critics claim that this book doesn’t focus enough on his many achievements, and they would be right.  However, this really isn’t the intention.  Note the subtitle “The Art of Power”.  That’s really what the focus of this book is, and how such a description relates to Thomas Jefferson.  Yes, this biography covers his entire life, it’s just a bit thin in some areas, and other facets of his life might get more attention than some readers desire.

Of course, I always maintain that it’s always quite difficult to compile such a volume about people that lived over 200 years ago.  Oh, sure, we have plenty of correspondence and valuable resources, but in the age before television and other forms of mass media, you always have to treat some areas with caution when people claim they know the “real” story.

The biggest area of focus in this book is Thomas Jefferson the politician. From his days in the Second Continental Congress, all the way to President of the United States, we get a good picture of the man, but an even better picture of the political climate of the day.  What we must remember about our young nation during, and immediately after, the American Revolution, is that no one really knew for sure what kind of government we would have.  Yes, we wanted to escape British authoritarian control, but once that happens, then what?  The biggest struggles in the book seems to revolve around the Federalist party that desired more centralized control (similar to the British monarchy), and the Democrat-Republican party that argued for more individual rights and claimed that all men were created equal, and everyone should have fair representation and a fair shot.  Jefferson was a big proponent of the latter.  There’s a lot of political bantering here.  Anyone who thinks partisan politics is a recent creation needs to read this book for a different perspective.

There’s a fair amount of his personal life here as well, including his relationship with slave Sally Hemings.  Jefferson was definitely a creature of his culture when it came to American slavery.  He claimed that he favored emancipation and manumissions, yet he seemed to always own a fair share of slaves, including Ms. Hemings.  Although there are many interpretations of this part of his life, this book led me to speculate that he actually loved, or at least deeply cared for Sally Hemings.  After his wife died several years earlier, she made him promise that he would never marry again.  Well, he kept that promise, but seemed to turn to Sally Hemings more and more for comfort and companionship.

Despite this incident, I found that I generally liked Thomas Jefferson.  He impressed me as someone who didn’t allow anyone to do his thinking for him, and always had intelligent things to say about current goings-on.  I would add Thomas Jefferson to my list of historical figures that I would love to meet and spend a few hours conversing. 

As mentioned, this book doesn’t dive too deep.  If you’re wanting a lot of insights on his writing the Declaration of Independence, The Louisiana Purchase, or his workings with the conflicts of the Tripoli Pirates, I would advise you to look elsewhere.  If, however, you want an overall understanding of who the man was, and his contributions to the early times of American History, I would highly recommend.