The name that
immediately comes to our mind for an early American president after George
Washington is that of Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of the
United States. This is a short biography of Thomas Jefferson from Hourly
History.
Jefferson is
from Virginia and was part of the elite of the society. His family owned
plantations and several slaves and he himself owned several slaves during his
later years. However, he also pursued a career in law and has several times,
argued for the freedom of certain runaway slaves. The book then goes on to his
disagreements with President John Adams whilst he was vice-president, then on
to his own Presidency, where he organised the Louisiana Purchase and enacted
certain controversial Acts removing the natives from the area. The book then
focused on his post retirement career of an academic, establishing the
University of Virginia.
It was a
well-structured biography – from the times Jefferson was a patriot to the
cause, then his stint as an Ambassador in Paris, followed by his entry into
politics, presidency and finally retirement with each given an individual
chapter. The various disagreements he had with his political masters, his
paradoxical personality (refer the above slave example) – was brought out very
well. There was also a decent focus on his personal life without going too much
into it.
However, the
book also excessively referred to aspects of US history surrounding the
independence even in places where Jefferson was not involved and need not even
have been mentioned. Without it, perhaps the book could have focused on some of
the finer aspects of Jefferson’s presidency without compromising on the ability
of the book to be read within an hour.
Based on the
structure and the depth of the overview that the book gave, I would award the
book a rating of seven on ten.
Rating
– 7/10
Have
a nice day,
Andy
Andy
No comments:
Post a Comment