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Master of the Mountain

Audiobook
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 debt-ridden 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. 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?

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Publisher: HighBridge Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781611749908
  • File size: 318374 KB
  • Release date: October 16, 2012
  • Duration: 11:03:16

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781611749908
  • File size: 319161 KB
  • Release date: October 16, 2012
  • Duration: 11:03:12
  • Number of parts: 11

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Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

Languages

English

Levels

Lexile® Measure:1260
Text Difficulty:9-12

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 debt-ridden 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. 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?

Expand title description text
  • Details

    Publisher:
    HighBridge
    Edition:
    Unabridged

    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    ISBN: 9781611749908
    File size: 318374 KB
    Release date: October 16, 2012
    Duration: 11:03:16

    MP3 audiobook
    ISBN: 9781611749908
    File size: 319161 KB
    Release date: October 16, 2012
    Duration: 11:03:12
    Number of parts: 11

  • Creators
  • Formats
    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    MP3 audiobook
  • Languages
    English
  • Levels
    Lexile® Measure: 1260
    Text Difficulty: 9-12
  • Reviews
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