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This review will not necessarily follow the usual format. When it comes to the Presidential biographies that I am reading, I would like to write first about the president himself, consisting of what their life was like and his eventual presidency, through what I have learned in the text. Next, I would write a review on the text itself. I cannot do this however, since this book feels so...underwhelming.
At a scant 200 pages of actual narrative, this is one of the shortest biographies that one can find on any president anywhere, and this is so incredibly sad, given the man we have to work with. If one word could describe Jefferson, it would be enigma. He was a man who called slavery a sin, yet owned slaves himself, wrote the Declaration of Independence and still held people in bondage. He was a staunch racist yet slept with Sally Hemmings. He was a strong Anti-Federalist, yet he made the single largest land purchase in US history, while also using a system of finance to fund it that he had railed against for decades. In short, Jefferson was a man whom people far better educated than I would struggle to understand. One would think that even reading this short biography would help to resolve some of this confusion.
Sadly, though, it did not. This is mostly a cliff notes version of Jefferson's life. What would take a chapter in any other biography takes about five pages here. Friends that Jefferson had known since boyhood, and whom Jefferson called one of the best people of Virginia? The friend is name dropped, at best and we feel little impact of their relationship. The time of Jefferson abroad, serving as foreign minister to France? Given a few pages, at most. This means that, while we are given ample historical context to events, including theology, foreign policy, and law practices at the time, we never really get to know the man the book is named after. This can leave my journey with the Jefferson in this text feeling somewhat hollow and unfulfilled.
But can I really blame the book? What did I expect when I find that it has a less than 300 page count, including the appendix? As I seem to constantly have to remind myself, I suppose that I should rate this book based on what it is, rather than what I want it to be. On this case, I would say that this book is just not for me. It often goes over basic history that I know already know, while giving Jefferson a scant mention at best. The only reason that I am reading this specific bio of Jefferson at all is because I had to buy it for college, and only read a chapter of it. That said, if you are someone who has not read a history book in many years, then this may be a good book to pick up. For me, however, this text is one that I give a two out of five. Now I can get rid of this and proceed with Madison. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
