Jefferson and Monticello
The Biography of a Builder
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2.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A National Book Award nominee in 1988, Jack McLaughlin's biography tells the life of Thomas Jefferson as seen through the prism of his love affair with Monticello.
For over half a century, it was his consuming passion, his most serious amusement. With a sure command of sources and skilled intuitive understanding of Jefferson, McLaughlin crafts and uncommon portrait of builder and building alike. En route he tells us much about life in Virginia; about Monticello's craftsmen and how they worked their materials; about slavery, class, and family; and, above all, about the multiplicity of domestic concerns that preoccupied this complex man. It is an engaging and incisive look at the eighteenth-century mind: systematic, rational, and curious, but also playful, comfort-loving, and amusing. Ultimately, it provides readers with great insight into daily life in Colonial and Federal America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Moorhouse, a British travel writer closely associated with the Indian subcontinent ( Calcutta and To the Frontier ), has turned his sharp eye for nuance and detail to the New World in this entertaining volume. His portrait of New York City displays a journalist's flair for combining history with observation and anecdote in lively chapters about the city's many facets. Among the subjects covered: architecture, ethnic diversity, Jews, blacks, Wall Street, the struggle for success, social mobility, crime, politics and the alarmingly decayed infrastructure. Moorhouse has written an evocative account of the Big Apple's powerful urges, frantic endeavors, enormous determination and insatiable appetites.
