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A must-read on race and identity
This book helps us rethink our past and remember what we have forgotten. America is a racially mixed country because of slavery and its legacy. Now we know definitively that Thomas Jefferson and Annette Hemings had a relationship--one that was tragic but also beautiful. The author takes the history of an interracial relationship out of the shadows and tells it with vivid detail. It opens up a new way of thinking about America's founding fathers--and mothers.
[Friday, November 21, 2008]
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Kindle version overpriced
One star only because the Kindle version needs to start at $9.99, $17. . . .
[Thursday, November 20, 2008]
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A masterful study of the Hemings family
Annette Gordon-Reed has written a captivating piece of history about the Hemings family, about the way they were inexorably intertwined with the Jeffersons well before the Sally story, about the feel of what it meant for slaves like the Hemingses to live in Virginia and in other places like Paris and Philadelphia. For me, the most interesting aspect of the book is the story of Sally's brother, James. What abilities he had, what a rich life he led by the standards of his time, what a right arm he was for Jefferson, what a conflict of identity he shouldered, and what tragedy and mystery defined the end of his life! The author has shed light on so much about the story of the two families, but another interesting aspect made crystal clear by her book as well, is to have to learn and accept what we do not know, what we will never know, such as James's death, in other words, what is lost to history about that and so much else concerning slavery and the Founding Fathers.
[Monday, November 17, 2008]
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