Jefferson's America: The President, the Purchase, and the Ex
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SpookysBooks
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Jefferson's America: The President, the Purchase, and the Ex
Jefferson's America: The President, the Purchase, and the Explorers Who Transformed a Nation by Julie M. Fenster
The surprising story of how Thomas Jefferson commanded an unrivaled age of American exploration—and in presiding over that era of discovery, forged a great nation.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, as Britain, France, Spain, and the United States all jockeyed for control of the vast expanses west of the Mississippi River, the stakes for American expansion were incalculably high. Even after the American purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Spain still coveted that land and was prepared to employ any means to retain it. With war expected at any moment, Jefferson played a game of strategy, putting on the ground the only Americans he could: a cadre of explorers who finally annexed it through courageous investigation.
Responsible for orchestrating the American push into the continent was President Thomas Jefferson. He most famously recruited Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who led the Corps of Discovery to the Pacific, but at the same time there were other teams who did the same work, in places where it was even more crucial. William Dunbar, George Hunter, Thomas Freeman, Peter Custis, and the dauntless Zebulon Pike—all were dispatched on urgent missions to map the frontier and keep up a steady correspondence with Washington about their findings.
But they weren’t always well-matched—with each other and certainly not with a Spanish army of a thousand soldiers or more. These tensions threatened to undermine Jefferson’s goals for the nascent country, leaving the United States in danger of losing its foothold in the West. Deeply researched and inspiringly told, Jefferson’s America rediscovers the robust and often harrowing action from these seminal expeditions and illuminates the president’s vision for a continental America
My thoughts on it:
five stars all the way
I have to say that I loved this book and so glad that I picked it up to read:
what did I love about it:
1:how well researched it was and that it contains lots of information about the early explorers including Meriweather Lewis, William Clark, Zebulon Peak, Peter Custis, William Dunbar, Thomas Freeman, George Hunter and James Wilkinson
2:the old black and white photos and paintings
3:readable narrative and is enhanced by its access points
4: how it seems to just pull you in to the story and that you can almost feel and see what is happing
5: the maps
ok so I loved everything about it, what's not to love ,this book brings to life the history of the people as well as the times that the book take place in, I .was provided with a free copy of this book by Blogging for Books and I have to say thinks to them because with out them I might not of picked it up, there's so much in this book that I didn't even know,.Its a Must read to any one who loves history just as much as I do
The surprising story of how Thomas Jefferson commanded an unrivaled age of American exploration—and in presiding over that era of discovery, forged a great nation.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, as Britain, France, Spain, and the United States all jockeyed for control of the vast expanses west of the Mississippi River, the stakes for American expansion were incalculably high. Even after the American purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Spain still coveted that land and was prepared to employ any means to retain it. With war expected at any moment, Jefferson played a game of strategy, putting on the ground the only Americans he could: a cadre of explorers who finally annexed it through courageous investigation.
Responsible for orchestrating the American push into the continent was President Thomas Jefferson. He most famously recruited Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who led the Corps of Discovery to the Pacific, but at the same time there were other teams who did the same work, in places where it was even more crucial. William Dunbar, George Hunter, Thomas Freeman, Peter Custis, and the dauntless Zebulon Pike—all were dispatched on urgent missions to map the frontier and keep up a steady correspondence with Washington about their findings.
But they weren’t always well-matched—with each other and certainly not with a Spanish army of a thousand soldiers or more. These tensions threatened to undermine Jefferson’s goals for the nascent country, leaving the United States in danger of losing its foothold in the West. Deeply researched and inspiringly told, Jefferson’s America rediscovers the robust and often harrowing action from these seminal expeditions and illuminates the president’s vision for a continental America
My thoughts on it:
five stars all the way
I have to say that I loved this book and so glad that I picked it up to read:
what did I love about it:
1:how well researched it was and that it contains lots of information about the early explorers including Meriweather Lewis, William Clark, Zebulon Peak, Peter Custis, William Dunbar, Thomas Freeman, George Hunter and James Wilkinson
2:the old black and white photos and paintings
3:readable narrative and is enhanced by its access points
4: how it seems to just pull you in to the story and that you can almost feel and see what is happing
5: the maps
ok so I loved everything about it, what's not to love ,this book brings to life the history of the people as well as the times that the book take place in, I .was provided with a free copy of this book by Blogging for Books and I have to say thinks to them because with out them I might not of picked it up, there's so much in this book that I didn't even know,.Its a Must read to any one who loves history just as much as I do
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onegoodbook_blog
- Posts: 8
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I just finished reading an interesting historical novel by Stephen O'Connor. The book is entitled Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings. The book was published this year, 2016, so it's considered to be a "new" novel about Jefferson and his relationship with his slave lady friend, Sally. I've been to Monticello twice over the years, and I've read several books about Jefferson, so this book grabbed my attention. In the book, Jefferson first approaches Sally for sex while they are living in Paris. She is only 16 years old and he is 46. It basically was a rape but she knew she had no choice in the matter. She remembered something her mother had said to her in the past, so she knew that white men could have anything they wanted. Although Sally's blood was only partly African American, she still had to live the life of a slave. In fact, her biological father was a white man, and if I remember correctly, her mother was part white as well. This book gives you some insight into how Sally Hemings might have felt during the years that she had a relationship with Jefferson. Did she ever grow fond of him? Did he genuinely love her? I suppose that no one really knows what was in the mind of these two, but this book gives you some ideas as to how they might have felt. I give this book 4 stars and hope that you will read it. I've always been intrigued with Jefferson, partly because my Great Uncle Bob in Kentucky said that some of Jefferson's mulatto descendants are buried on his land. Uncle Bob swore that this was true, and my father has seen the graves. I definitely need to get the names and more info about this.
