Jon Meacham

Presents a portrait of the third president that considers his early life, role as a Founding Father, and considerable achievements as a master politician.

The Art of Power

Thomas Jefferson

Scott Wilson

I would summarize this book up as being like a good bottle of wine - something that needs to be savoured and enjoyed rather than simply guzzled down.

I found that I struggled at times to finish this lengthy book. It was an amazing history of one of America's founding fathers. The book was very good, and very, very detailed. 

Thomas Jefferson was an extremely interesting man, one who was very gifted in many many areas of life, the least of which being his politics.

I would say that in 'comparision', he appears to have been almost as close as Benjamin Franklin in what he accomplished.

I will now be picking up, however, a biography on Adams and Hamilton so that I can hear the "other" side to the relationships between these three. I can't help but feel that I have only heard one side of the story and want for more detail.

Michael W

As an alumnus of the College of William and Mary (Go Tribe!), I was willing to give a work of Mr. Meachem's another try given the promise of a portrait of one of the College's most beloved sons. I was immensely disappointed with American Lion, which I found to be a very stilted, obvious, but strangely bloodless portrayal of one of the nation's most colorful, vivacious leaders--I was shocked by the acclaim it received. It was with an apprehensive open-mindedness that I cracked open the beautifully printed and bound Art of Power, wary of how Meachem might tell the story of another complex, flawed member of the American Pantheon.

As with American Lion, I found Meachem's prose stilted and obvious, his constant editorializing adding little--usually distracting and often detracting from enjoyment. His early section on the youthful education of Jefferson left much to be desired in terms of depth, detail, and presentation, being very disjointed and cumbersome. Meachem found his groove as he dove into the more political Jefferson, deftly handing some of the anecdotes and presenting a workable portrait of the man's maneuverings, tensions, and ambitions, though the prose remained cumbersome and the narrative choppy. Meachem, clearly an admirer of Jefferson's, also glossed over many of the massive contradictions in both Jefferson's personal and political lives, doing a disservice to the reader. For all his willingness to editorialize ("it is easy to imagine that Jefferson thought..."), Meachem is all too wiling to accept Jefferson's writings uncritically without examining the inherent contradictions in nearly every facet of Jefferson's being. In all, a decent overview, but those who have read other, better works on Jefferson and the Revolutionary/Early Republic period will find little or nothing new here. Meachem did not attempt to write a comprehensive story of Jefferson--he acknowledges several times that his goal is not to be a complete biography, but a sketch of Jefferson's relationship to power. He is moderately successful, but I don't think this work is a necessary or even particularly useful addition to the Jefferson canon. Not much new to see here.

A deeply flawed, but ultimately worthwhile, read. While I did find myself enjoying aspects of this book, I don't think I'll be seeking out Mr. Meachem's future works.

Jeremy Anderberg

Though Jon Meacham won his Pulitzer for his biography of Andrew Jackson, this exploration of Thomas Jefferson is far more worthy of that honor. Though it’s far from perfect—Jefferson’s warts should’ve gotten more exposure—it’s a very good narrative of has made the man such an enduring figure in American history. 

As the title suggests, Thomas Jefferson’s life is really a study in power. As a young politician, he helped shape the heritage of his native Virginia in innumerable ways. 

As a middle-aged politician, he wrote the words that would cement his status as an American icon: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Of course, those rights didn’t apply to all people at that time, but the idea for American equality was seeded in that Declaration of Independence. 

As an older politician, he led the nation as president, mentored a couple of young proteges (future presidents Madison and Monroe), and lived a long post-POTUS life. 

Meacham did a good job showing how Jefferson was actually sort of the archetype for American power. He was a man with great intellectual capabilities, everyman sensibilities, and massive blindspots in his moral compass. Haven’t most of the powerful men in our history shared those traits? 

I just wish Meacham has put a little more focus on those blindspots. The omissions aren’t egregious, but I did feel like the Jeffersonian picture I ultimately ended up with wasn’t as full as I’d hoped. 

That said, this is a good beginning point for studying the man. If you’re like me, though, you’ll be pulled into more Jeffersonian literature in order to try to figure out the great American enigma.

Amber Laha

I found Jefferson to be a very interesting fellow. I also found that this author tried to brush off Jefferson's humanity by over praising how great he was. Overall, it was an educational read that helped me understand who the third president was and how his journey led him to be our third president.

Jeni Enjaian

This was a decent biography but nothing more. With a subject like Thomas Jefferson, Meacham could have easily written much more in depth on certain topics. (I see now that this book is 800 pages. Because I read it as an audiobook I did not have a good gauge of its length. If felt much shorter than it is.)

Meacham competently surveyed Jefferson's life. His historiography seems sound. His writing style avoids the grandiose for the most part. (Grandiose description with a subject like this is easy to indulge in for an American author.) Overall, I wouldn't say that this is my favorite biography of Jefferson but it certainly is not the worst. Thus, I give it three stars...not too good, not too bad.

For those looking for a biography of Jefferson, this is a pretty decent one.

Tony McCollum

Apurva Chitnis

D VA

Keven Wang

Rafael Garcia

Kathy Jedrzejczyk

Nathan Davis

Vikram Sreekanti

Kay Jamieson

Lauren hughes 

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Bloomberg Businessweek In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history. The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity—and the genius of the new nation—lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President’s House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion. The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world. Praise for Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power “This is probably the best single-volume biography of Jefferson ever written.”—Gordon S. Wood “A big, grand, absorbing exploration of not just Jefferson and his role in history but also Jefferson the man, humanized as never before.”—Entertainment Weekly “[Meacham] captures who Jefferson was, not just as a statesman but as a man. . . . By the end of the book . . . the reader is likely to feel as if he is losing a dear friend. . . . [An] absorbing tale.”—The Christian Science Monitor “This terrific book allows us to see the political genius of Thomas Jefferson better than we have ever seen it before. In these endlessly fascinating pages, Jefferson emerges with such vitality that it seems as if he might still be alive today.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin

Thomas Jefferson The Art of Power

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