The following excerpt is from Michal Jan Rozbicki's review essay in the June 2013 issue of Historically Speaking. Rozbicki uses Jon Meacham's Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
(Random House, 2012) to delve into "the cult of great individuals," which even in the present, does not lack enthusiasts. Rozbicki is professor of history and director of the Center for Intercultural Studies at Saint Louis University. He is the author of Culture and Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution (University of Virginia Press, 2011).
One would be hard pressed to find a dull period in Thomas Jefferson’s life. Mindful of that, I began devouring Jon Meacham’s 800-page Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power anticipating a gourmet biographical feast. It started off as an enjoyable and well-paced story but it was not long before the taste of syrup began to take over. By the time I reached page eight I had already been informed that “Jefferson was the
most successful political figure of the first half century of the American Republic,” “had a remarkable capacity to marshal ideas and to move on, to balance the inspirational and the pragmatic,” and was “a transformative leader.” He was a “formidable man” and his “genius” was that he “dreamed big but understood that dreams become reality only when their champions are strong enough and wily enough to bend history to their purposes.” A case of “the rare leader who stood out from the crowd without intimidating it,” his “bearing gave him unusual opportunities to make the thoughts in his head the work of his hands, transforming the world around him.” Not only “a man of Enlightenment, always looking forward, consumed by the quest for knowledge” but also “an inveterate walker,” “fit and virile,” “never tired of invention and inquiry,” “delighted in archeology paleontology, astronomy, botany, and meteorology,” “drew sustenance from music and found joy in gardening,” “bought and built beautiful things,”“was an enthusiastic patron of pasta,” and “enjoyed the search for a perfect dressing for his salads.” Moreover, he “knew Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and Spanish,” was “a student of human nature, a keen observer of what drove other men,” “perfectly acquainted” with “subject after subject,” an “extraordinary man.” Politically, he was “the father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, of the American West,” “the author and designer of America, a figure who articulated a vision of what the country could be.” A “builder and a fighter,” he “gave the nation the idea of American progress.” He was able to operate “on two levels, cultivating the hope of a brighter future while preserving the political flexibility and skill to bring the ideal as close as possible to reality.” The world “found him charming, brilliant, and gracious,” friends thought “he was among the greatest men who had ever lived, a Renaissance figure who was formidable without seeming overbearing, sparkling without being showy, winning without appearing cloying,” and “women in particular loved him.” Oh, and “he had great teeth” (xvii-xxiv).
Posts
