Book Review: American Sphinx

American Sphinx : The Character of Thomas Jefferson

Having just finished this 367 page book by Joseph J. Ellis I thought I would write down a few thoughts about it.

I don't remember ever having spent more than a few moments studying Thomas Jefferson until now. I frankly don't even remember the times in my school years that I learned about him. I'm sure that in some history class sometime his name came up. So, I was looking forward to spending several hours studying his life. For the most part I learned a great deal. That however, is relative. Relative to the little that I previously had known about him. While learning a great deal and enjoying the increased knowledge about one of history's greatest characters, the reading of this book was not enjoyable. The 367 pages read more like 800. It is ironic since Ellis takes the first 100 pages of the book assuring us that the only reason he is writing this piece is so that the 'common man' can have something to learn about Thomas Jefferson. So that people wouldn't have to get bogged down with literary analysis etc. Well, personally this book read exactly like the author was saying it shouldn't. He also spends significant time in the first 100 pages trying to convince us that EVERYONE is or has written about Thomas Jefferson, but he doesn't give a good reason just why he is choosing to do so. This theme is present throughout the entire book and gets very tiresome.
Inbetween all this conflict between the author and himself one can learn a great deal about the man Thomas Jefferson. I especially appreciated reading about Mr. Jefferson's side of the now famous decades of written communication between he and John Adams. Having recently read an excellent treatment on John Adams by David McCullough. Evidently the written correspondence was so excellent that the information in both books was nearly identical save the specific info available from each man and their private thoughts on the other.
I also learned a great deal about the history of slavery from the inception of our republic. I didn't previously know how much of an issue it had been and how deeply Thomas Jefferson was involved. His hatred of slavery that was evident from his writings and actions was diametrically opposed by the fact that he owned well over 100 hundred slaves until his death. Even at his death he only freed 5 slaves in his will.
I had heard some about the Sally Hemings controversy but it was nice to have that tied up in a neat little bow by the information now available and provided in the book. It would now be interesting to know who the people now alive are that are so directly related to Thomas Jefferson the 3rd President of the United States.
In summary: while full of information and well written this book is not an 'easy' read and would require some dedication by a reader to push through it. That being said, if you can get past the first 100 pages you can learn a great deal about a man that is very much worth learning.