Reading: E. M. Halliday (2001): Understanding Thomas Jefferson
E. M. Halliday (2001): Understanding Thomas Jefferson (New York: Harper Perennial: 0060957611) <http://amzn.to/2lWn7f3>
This is only one-third of a biography of Thomas Jefferson: it is about Jefferson the human being, rather than Jefferson the moral philosopher or Jefferson the politician. And I do not think it is the best biography even of Jefferson the human being--it is too short. But it is, I think, the best very short biography of Jefferson the human being...
Five Questions:
- What does Halliday say that Jefferson-the-human was, if not a "sphinx" whom we are incapable of understanding?
- Sally Hemings: WTF?!
- What did Jefferson do that he thought was most worth remembering? Why did he think those things were most worth remembering?
- What does Halliday think of historians and biographers of Jefferson (with the exception of Fawn Brodie)?
- What does Halliday understand to be the status of his biography--the likelihood that it is all true, or true enough, or grasps the essence of Jefferson-the-human?
