BWB REMEMBERS THE BOOKS OF OUR CHILDHOOD (3 OF 3)
The third and final part in our Children’s Book Week series on the books that BWB employees remember from their childhood. Don’t forget...
by Henry Wiencek
Hello, I'm an eBook ATTENTION : This item is an eBook. It is for use with various eBook readers, it is not a physical book. eBooks are available for downloaded immediately after you've gone through the checkout process.
Shipped from other seller
Condition:
Book Closeouts NY, USA
Central Kentucky Book Supply KY, USA
Firepowerguy VA, USA
The Old Library Shop PA, USA
Metropolitan Book Depot CA, USA
BargainBookStores MI, USA
BookHouse COM LLC PA, USA
Vitalbooks PA PA, USA
Urbookstore1 PA, USA
Qwestbooks PA, USA
Powell's Books OR, USA
More Books FL, USA
booklab NY, USA
Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Henry Wiencek's eloquent, persuasive book--based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson's papers--opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson's world. We must, Wiencek suggests, follow the money.
So far historians have offered only easy irony or paradox to explain this extraordinary Founding Father who was an emancipationist in his youth and then recoiled from his own inspiring rhetoric and equivocated about slavery, who enjoyed his renown as a revolutionary leader yet kept some of his own children as slaves. But Wiencek's Jefferson is a man of business and public affairs who makes a success of his debtridden plantation thanks to what he calls the "silent profits" gained from his slaves--and thanks to a skewed moral universe that he and thousands of others readily inhabited. We see Jefferson taking out a slave-equity line of credit with a Dutch bank to finance the building of Monticello and deftly creating smoke screens when visitors are dismayed by his apparent endorsement of a system they thought he'd vowed to overturn. It is not a pretty story. Slave boys are whipped to make them work in the nail factory at Monticello that pays Jefferson's grocery bills. Parents are divided from children--in his ledgers they are recast as money--while he composes theories that obscure the dynamics of what some of his friends call "a vile commerce."
Many people of Jefferson's time saw a catastrophe coming and tried to stop it, but not Jefferson. The pursuit of happiness had been badly distorted, and an oligarchy was getting very rich. Is this the quintessential American story?
Our best deal on used books 3 for $10 and just $3 each additional book. Shop and Save
We match every book you purchase with a book donation. Learn more »
Gift Certificate = Happy Friend + Books donated to families in need Make Someone Happy »