Audiobook14 hours
Most Blessed of the Patriarchs
Written by Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf
Narrated by Karen Chilton
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
A groundbreaking work of history that explicates Thomas Jefferson's vision of himself, the American Revolution, Christianity, slavery, and race. Thomas Jefferson is still presented today as a hopelessly enigmatic figure, despite being written about more than any other Founding Father. Lauded as the most articulate voice of American freedom, even as he held people in bondage, Jefferson is variably described by current-day observers as a hypocrite, an atheist, and a simple-minded proponent of limited government. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed teams up with the country's leading Jefferson scholar, Peter S. Onuf, to present an absorbing and revealing character study that finally clarifies the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. Tracing Jefferson's development and maturation from his youth to his old age, the authors explore what they call the "empire" of Jefferson's imagination-his expansive state of mind born of the intellectual influences and life experiences that led him into public life as a modern avatar of the enlightenment, who often likened himself to an ancient figure-"the most blessed of the patriarchs."
Author
Annette Gordon-Reed
Annette Gordon-Reed is Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School.
More audiobooks from Annette Gordon Reed
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Juneteenth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Most Blessed of the Patriarchs
Related audiobooks
Jefferson's Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thomas Jefferson: American Revolutionary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5His Excellency: George Washington Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5George Mason: The Founding Father Who Gave Us the Bill of Rights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grover Cleveland: The American Presidents Series: The 22nd and 24th President, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Emperor: Aaron Burr's Challenge to Jefferson's America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of an American President Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Course of Human Events Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Monroe: A Republican Champion Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5James Madison and the Making of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Madison Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
United States History For You
Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wright Brothers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letter from Birmingham Jail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Most Blessed of the Patriarchs
Rating: 3.571428585714286 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
28 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Mispronunciations, pseudo-academic “woke” analysis, and circular, repetitive coverage make this fairly dull. The real history contained herein is derivative of other works. Finally, the overuse of “suggests that” suggests that the authors had something in mind and cherry picked the facts to paint that picture.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolitely excellent work. Topical and in-depth. Well worth the time to read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I’ll give it a three because the light it sheds on Jefferson’s character outweighs my dissatisfaction with it’s literary merit. The “Empire of the Imagination” of the subtitle seems to refer not only to the glorious republic that Jefferson imagined the new nation could become, but also to the self-image he cultivated, which was often at odds with reality. He extolled the virtues of home life, wherein, he thought were cultivated the spirit of fellowship and civility and moral values that would be the bedrock of the national comity. He often wrote about the central place that home played in his life. Yet he only spent a handful of years actually living in Monticello, and most of that time was in what he considered to be an illicit relationship with a slave. On that biggest question, that of slavery, he recognized its evil, yet came to an accommodation with it, thinking that he could ameliorate it with kindness, and wishfully thinking that his countrymen would quickly come to appreciate its corrosive effect on them and, thus, disavow it. He was a sensitive poet, who may have been out of place in politics, and I love him for his poetry, for his love and care for humanity, which has inspired us, but which, I suspect partly because of the excessive optimism he brought to bear on the practical matters of state, we have fallen short of.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This biography focuses on Jefferson's personal life, his home, his family, and his attitudes about them. He was progressive in many ways, a man of the Enlightenment, but his beliefs about gender, race, and religion remained constrained by his times. The impression I'm left with from this book is that Jefferson sincerely meant well and did his best.