
American Sphinx
The Character of Thomas Jefferson
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Narrated by:
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Susan O'Malley
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By:
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Joseph J. Ellis
About this listen
For a man who insisted that life on the public stage was not what he had in mind, Thomas Jefferson certainly spent a great deal of time in the spotlight - and not only during his active political career. After 1809, his longed-for retirement was compromised by a steady stream of guests and tourists who made of his estate at Monticello a virtual hotel, as well as by more than one thousand letters per year, most from strangers, which he insisted on answering personally. In his twilight years Jefferson was already taking on the luster of a national icon, which was polished off by his auspicious death (on July 4, 1896); and in the subsequent 17 decades of his celebrity - now verging, thanks to virulent revisionists and television documentaries, on notoriety - has been inflated beyond recognition of the original person.
For the historian Joseph J. Ellis, the experience of writing about Jefferson was "as if a pathologist, just about to begin an autopsy, has discovered that the body on the operating table was still breathing." In American Sphinx, Ellis sifts the facts shrewdly from the legends and the rumors, treading a path between vilification and hero worship in order to formulate a plausible portrait of the man who still today "hover[s] over the political scene like one of those dirigibles cruising above a crowded football stadium, flashing words of inspiration to both teams". For, at the grass roots, Jefferson is no longer liberal or conservative, agrarian or industrialist, pro- or anti-slavery, privileged or populist. He is all things to all people. His own obliviousness to incompatible convictions within himself (which left him deaf to most forms of irony) has leaked out into the world at large - a world determined to idolize him despite his foibles.
From Ellis we learn that Jefferson sang incessantly under his breath; that he delivered only two public speeches in eight years as president, while spending 10 hours a day at his writing desk; that sometimes his political sensibilities collided with his domestic agenda, as when he ordered an expensive piano from London during a boycott (and pledged to "keep it in storage"). We see him relishing such projects as the nailery at Monticello that allowed him to interact with his slaves more palatably, as pseudo-employer to pseudo-employees. We grow convinced that he preferred to meet his lovers in the rarefied region of his mind rather than in the actual bedchamber. We watch him exhibiting both great depth and great shallowness, combining massive learning with extraordinary naïveté, piercing insights with self-deception on the grandest scale. We understand why we should neither beatify him nor consign him to the rubbish heap of history, though we are by no means required to stop loving him. He is Thomas Jefferson, after all - our very own sphinx.
©1997 Joseph J. Ellis (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Fascinating...an erudite and illuminating study.” (The New York Times)
“This elegant book on Jefferson sets a standard - history at its best.” (Chicago Tribune Editor’s Choice)
“A brilliant, unconventional look at Jefferson...beautifully written, cogently argues, full of both zealous scholarship and lively imagination.”(Cleveland Plain Dealer)
“Magnificent.... Ellis has a Jeffersonian gift for language.” (Newsweek)
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Overall
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In The Birth of the Republic, 1763-89, Edmund S. Morgan shows how the challenge of British taxation started Americans on a search for constitutional principles to protect their freedom, and eventually led to the Revolution. By demonstrating that the founding fathers' political philosophy was not grounded in theory, but rather grew out of their own immediate needs, Morgan paints a vivid portrait of how the founders' own experiences shaped their passionate convictions, and these in turn were incorporated into the Constitution and other governmental documents.
By: Edmund S. Morgan, and others
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Passionate Sage
- The Character and Legacy of John Adams
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Tom Parker
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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John Adams, one of the Founding Fathers of our nation and its second president, spent nearly the last third of his life in retirement, grappling with contradictory views of his place in history and fearing his reputation would not fare well in the generations after his death. And indeed, future generations did slight him, elevating Jefferson and Madison to lofty heights while Adams remained way back in the second tier.
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Stays true to Audible's description
- By Neil on 10-24-09
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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John Adams
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 29 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This is history on a grand scale, an audiobook about politics, war, and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, it is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.
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An outstanding biography
- By Davis on 07-10-06
By: David McCullough
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Revolutionary Characters
- What Made the Founders Different
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Gordon Wood's wondrous accomplishment here is to bring these men and their times down to earth and within our reach, showing us just who they were and what drove them. In so doing, he shows us that although a lot has changed in two hundred years, to an amazing degree the virtues these founders defined for themselves are the virtues we aspire to still.
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Wood clearly dislikes Adams
- By Michael on 01-15-07
By: Gordon S. Wood
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Power and Liberty
- Constitutionalism in the American Revolution
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The half century extending from the imperial crisis between Britain and its colonies in the 1760s to the early decades of the new republic of the United States was the greatest and most creative era of constitutionalism in American history, and perhaps in the world. During these decades, Americans explored and debated all aspects of politics and constitutionalism - the nature of power, liberty, representation, rights, the division of authority between different spheres of government, sovereignty, judicial authority, and written constitutions.
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Provides Context for Todays Mess
- By Tad on 07-20-24
By: Gordon S. Wood
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Alexander Hamilton
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 35 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power.
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An Outstanding & Riveting Book!
- By Kevin on 03-04-05
By: Ron Chernow
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The Great Contradiction
- The Tragic Side of the American Founding
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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A major new history from the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Founding Brothers and the National Book Award winner American Sphinx, on how America’s founders—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams—regarded the issue of slavery as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. In this daring and important work, our most trusted voice on the founding era reckons with the realities and regrets of our founding and the tragedy of its two great failures: the failure to end slavery and the failure to avoid Indian removal
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
- By: Bernard Bailyn
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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To the original text of what has become a classic of American historical literature, Bernard Bailyn adds a substantial essay, "Fulfillment", as a postscript. Here he discusses the intense nationwide debate on the ratification of the Constitution, stressing the continuities between that struggle over the foundations of the national government and the original principles of the Revolution.
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Bernard Bailyn is a genius!
- By John M. Crean on 04-21-19
By: Bernard Bailyn
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Founding Brothers
- The Revolutionary Generation (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic - John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
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Great!
- By Gotta Tellya on 08-10-16
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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American Dialogue
- The Founders and Us
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of history is a ceaseless conversation between past and present, and in American Dialogue, Joseph J. Ellis focuses the conversation on the often-asked question "What would the Founding Fathers think?" He examines four of our most seminal historical figures through the prism of particular topics, using the perspective of the present to shed light on their views and, in turn, to make clear how their now centuries-old ideas illuminate the disturbing impasse of today's political conflicts.
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A fine work, even with the editorializing
- By Casey Kerrick on 11-24-18
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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George Washington
- The Political Rise of America's Founding Father
- By: David O. Stewart
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 18 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Washington's rise constitutes one of the greatest self-reinventions in history. In his mid-20s, this third son of a modest Virginia planter had ruined his own military career thanks to an outrageous ego. But by his mid-40s, that headstrong, unwise young man had evolved into an unassailable leader chosen as the commander in chief of the fledgling Continental Army. By his mid-50s, he was unanimously elected the nation's first president. How did Washington emerge from the wilderness to become the central founder of the United States of America?
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The man I never knew.
- By Paul on 05-18-22
By: David O. Stewart
He convinced me that Thomas Jefferson was so very private and also perfectly comfortable living in painful paradox. Jefferson is also the sphinx – we don’t know what the hell he’s thinking.
That, and sally Hemmings was a drop-dead beauty who spent a lot of time in Mr. Jefferson’s chamber. He was very kind to his slaves, and he sorely yearned for the comfort of sexual intimacy which might also appear yet greater in temptation, knowing he could control this relationship and thereby the paradox and the wrongs. I find for the plaintiff, even in the absence of DNA
Hemming footnote was a HUGE error, which he notably corrects in at least one later work. He therefore remains among my top historians. Blame that scheming visionary Jefferson and that twisted curious institution that even today spews nuclear debris
Jo, this hurts me as much as it’s gonna hurt you
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Good book but goes in waves
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Indelible portrait of a complex visionary
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A good portrait of Jefferson’s character
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The author repeatedly engages in his own fantasies about the current nature of America, and in wishful thinking about the Constitution. He is of the opinion that the 10th Amendment is a legal and cultural nullity; it is not. Even before the addition of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett the Supreme Court had been trending far more Federalist than the author allows. He's also of the opinion that the New Deal and Great Society were unqualified successes. In fact they were catastrophic failures that have done NOTHING to improve the conditions of the vast majority of Americans--least of all those they were supposed to be helping--and their "crowning achievements," the Entitlement Programs, are bankrupting the country.
Why is Jefferson still an American icon, given the authors opinion of his irrelevance? Well, simply put, the author is a nincompoop. Americans remain deeply suspicious of government in all of its forms, just as Jefferson was. Americans aspire to a freer, more tolerant, and more open country, just as Jefferson did, even if we are almost as bad at realizing our aspirations as Jefferson was.
As for his view that Jefferson's approach to governance was simplistic idealism while the Federalists (and all later Big Government incarnations thereof) have been universally successful and that Jefferson's characterization of them as corrupt was nonsense, well, again, he is as completely mistaken as anyone can be. If we cannot characterize dangling bright expensive objects bought with money we do not have in front of voters as corruption, how should we characterize it? Stupidity? No, for it is done deliberately. Shortsightedness? But no, that doesn't do either. Hamilton knew he was writing checks the Treasury could not support. Indeed, he advocated it as a GREAT GOOD. Thirty-two trillion dollars later, we are the brokest country in history, and if Hamilton could not see it, surely from the vantage point of modernity the author must be blind as a mole rat if he can't.
Jefferson was correct about John Marshall, and the author is (as usual) mistaken. The Founders did NOT intend for the Supreme Court to have the power that it does, and contrary to his opinion, they did not even intend for the Federal Judiciary to have the extent of judicial review that Marshall thought himself entitled to. There already was a form of judicial review that had been exercised in England under the Common Law, and that was the extent of their endorsement. Indeed, they did not even intend the Federal Judiciary to be a co-equal branch of government. They set its personnel, its structure, and even the scope of laws it was permitted to adjudicate ENTIRELY under the power of Congress.
Finally, to comment on the Hemmings scandal, because another reviewer here--like many other misinformed people--seems to believe that Jefferson's paternity is now firmly established. This is false. All that the DNA test established is that some--but not all--of Hemmings children were fathered by someone in Jefferson's patrilineal line. That does not mean Jefferson. It does mean that Hemmings lied to her children about their patrimony, because one thing the test DID establish was that ONLY Eston Hemmings MIGHT have been fathered by Thomas Jefferson. But she told them they ALL were. And the man that disgusting Federalists used to impugn Jefferson's character in the first place, COULD NOT HAVE BEEN. The author, at least, gets this part right, although he has probably reconsidered his position since the DNA test, much as he has tried to toe the anti-Jefferson line everywhere else.
In fine and in sum: A book full of the author's opinions, conjectures, speculations, extrapolations and prejudices about Thomas Jefferson, but not very much history at all.
Best to avoid.
Jefferson, As Seen By Big Government
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