American Sphinx by Joseph Ellis

This is a National Book Award winner. Was it worthy? Probably. Did I like it? Not so much.

American Sphinx gives us a journey through Thomas Jefferson's life. We skip past the childhood and really get into his life around the time he first becomes political. In a truer sense, this book is an analysis of the service Jefferson gave to this country and how, although remarkable, some of his actions and points of view were less socially responsible than we remember.

To start off I want to say that I knew very little about Jefferson before reading this book. I now have a breadth of knowledge as to his actions, consequences and, arguably, his sentiments.

On the flip side of the coin, I don't like the way this book is written. It did not bother me so much in the first chapters but once I figured out what was irking me about the writing style I could not overlook it. It felt like I was ready the research project of a college sophomore, complete with all the swagger only such a writer can muster when attempting to pull the rug out on centuries of historians with minimal references to justify their doing so. Ellis does seem to have done his reading in hundreds of personal correspondence to and from this founder of our nation but, even so, many of his arguments feel forced and unsubstantiated. We are all human and we may all write things at one time or another that are not representative of our true feelings, or even if they are accurate at the moment, may be contrary to what we have felt or will feel in the future.

In this book I would have liked to see less arrogance in 'discoveries' and more of a sense of alluding to possibilities.