Fun fact: Thomas Jefferson used to be my favorite founding father. In my twenties it changed to Washington but that’s another story.
I’ve always been interested in Jefferson, since I was a kid. I think one my first book reports was on him when we had to do a biography. This book came out in 2012, I think but I didn’t get around to it until 2020. It had been on my radar for several years but Jon Meacham’s books are thick and I wasn’t entirely sold on them until I listened to his book about Andrew Jackson. After that I decided to give some of his other books a try.
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power explores Jefferson’s ability to be both philosopher and politician. Philosophers think and politicians maneuver, and Jefferson was one of the rare men who could do both. Meacham presents Jefferson’s world as he saw it, and what shaped him in his formative years as a boy and a young man. He was interested in and passionate about many things, including but not limited to science, architecture, gardens, books, his friends, family and women. Jefferson loved his home, Monticello, and the city of Paris, but he loved his country most of all and he was constantly looking for ways to achieve what he would consider a founding principle: creation, survival, and success of popular government.
This book takes us through his time as a leader – marshalling ideas (and cohorts), learning from mistakes, forming coalitions in a bitterly partisan time and a time of economic upheaval. Meacham presents Jefferson as possibly the most successful leader of the early American republic with possibly the most widely ranging influence – he championed individual liberty but recognized the new nation’s promise lay in progress, he argued for a small executive branch but he bought the Louisiana Territory, plus he wrote the Declaration of Independence and he established the University of Virginia. He had the usual complicated relationship with race, as did many men of his time.
I enjoyed this book greatly. I especially appreciated the look at Jefferson’s formative years, where you could begin to see that traits that would so clearly appear later on. Meacham does a commendable job explaining one of our most enigmatic founders, and the book is well researched.
Fun fact: My favorite quote from this book was “Jefferson found himself in a debate with a seven year old.” I just started laughing when I heard it read. The context was that Jefferson had to convince his daughter, Polly, to come to Paris with him and her sister, Patsy. Polly didn’t want to go.
Category Archives: biography
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
Napoleon: A Life
My friend Kevin recommended this book to me when I asked him for a book about Napoleon. This is one of the last books I listened to while I was still commuting to work and before the pandemic really kicked off.
I don’t know a lot about Napoleon or much about what was going on in Europe during that time because, frankly, it’s a gaping hole in my education.
As this is the only book about Napoleon I’ve read, I don’t have anything to compare it to. That said, I found this to be a very informative biography. I only had a sketchy idea of the French political circumstances surrounding Napoleon and his rise to power, and this really helped me understand how he became one of the most notorious rulers in the history of France/Europe. Further, I read that author Andrew Roberts was able to take advantage of a recently, never before published thirty-three thousand letter correspondence which further clarified Napoleon’s character. Ambitious, resentful of French rule over his home island of Corsica, he eventually joins the French military, rises through the ranks during the French Revolution, out foxes his co-conspirators in his coup d’etat, and became the Emperor of France. Easy.
This biography is 926 pages, I think the audiobook was about 35 hours. It was fascinating. I didn’t notice the length. It was a brilliant, fascinating book. As I understand, Napoleon understood the importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs (dictated in exile?) became some of the most popular books of the nineteenth century and this only enriches the narrative.
I very much enjoyed this biography. If you’re looking for a definitive biography, this is definitely the place to start.
The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock
I’ve been obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock since I was about…11. I think that’s about how old I was when I saw ‘The Birds,’ which, if I remember correctly, is the first Hitchcock movie I ever saw. I didn’t like it at first, but the more I’ve watched it since, the more I love it.
The random, coordinated group attacks of birds on humans for no explained reason at first left me completely unsatisfied as an 11 year old but now is one of my favorite things about almost any thriller/horror film – something completely normal that starts behaving abnormally for no explained reason. It isn’t uncommon to see a murder of crows hanging out at a park or a flock of seagulls near a bay. But when you run at them, they go away, they don’t launch coordinated attacks.
It’s a great film.
Anyway, I watched a bunch of Hitchcock films after that – ‘Strangers on a Train,’ ‘Notorious,’ ‘Rebecca,’ ‘Spellbound,’ etc…and finally ‘Psycho’ when I was 12 or 13 and my mom decided I could handle it. I loved ‘Psycho’ in a weird, obsessive way. I think I watched it a billion times. It made me want to work in movies. (Spoiler alert: my career in film didn’t work out.)
My love of Hitchcock’s films hasn’t faded although the time I have to study them since graduating from college has diminished a lot.
So I saw this (updated!) biography, The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock by Donald Spoto, and jumped at the chance to listen to it. I really enjoyed it, but I don’t know if it was because I’m such an obsessive fan or if it was because it was really very good. It was quite detailed, which I enjoyed.
I liked hearing about Hitchcock’s wife, Alma, who was an equal in writing and often cleaned up a lot of his scripts. He never filmed a script without her approval, and while their relationship seemed to be more about companionship and similar interests than passionate romance, Hitchcock could barely function whenever Alma was away or ill. When she was sick, later in their lives, he sat vigil in the hospital with her.
It’s hard to find out a lot about Hitchcock’s childhood online. It isn’t well documented, and even in this biography there were gaps. What we do know is that Hitchcock was raised Catholic. If you know anything about the Catholic Church of Hitchcock’s time, it’s not surprising that he had warped views of humor, sex, and death. In fact, Hitchcock’s sense of humor could be wicked as well, and rather nasty. He played a number of cruel pranks on people he decided he didn’t like.
But anyway, Hitchcock’s films very much reflected what was going on in his life, and reflected his Catholic upbringing, and I really liked learning about different film techniques he used and developed himself.
It was difficult for me, though, to hear for the first time “the dark side” of Hitchcock’s personality. I mean, I kinda knew, but the details are always hard for me to hear for the first time (and this is true for anyone I like, or who does something that I like, not just Hitchcock, before I fully accept the situation). Hitchcock’s obsession with film technique and story and everything that made his films so great extended to his actresses. He was obsessed with Grace Kelly, Joan Fontaine, and Ingrid Bergman, but it sounded as if he managed to control himself until he met Tippi Hedren, who he was actively cruel to and aggressive with, and who he was vengeful towards after she rebuffed his advances.
None of this was a shock to me, although yes, hearing the details made me cringe. Hedren’s been very open about this for years and I always believed her even if it was hard to reconcile my love for Hitchcock’s films with the fact that he was abusive towards her. As someone who has been dealing with this dilemma of separating the artist from the art since I was about 15 or 16, none of the Hollywood scandals of the last few months have shocked me at all, or particularly troubled me except in the sense that this is so wide spread and nobody said anything. But the “What do we do with the art?” thing now? No issue.
I’ve done it with the Founding Fathers, athletes, people I know personally, and myself. People have good and bad within them. They tend to do good and bad things. You have to separate the good from the bad or you’re not going to be able to have friends or enjoy anything. Sure, you have to have your line, and you should not tolerate abuse, and people who hurt other people should be punished accordingly. But somebody who commits adultery and also makes films? It’s disappointing, I guess, but what do I care really? Mel Gibson is a horrific human being. I’m still going to watch Signs in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep.
I get if other people can’t do that. You don’t have to go the way I do. But I still stop to watch ‘The Birds’ or ‘Psycho’ or ‘North by Northwest’ whenever they’re on. They’re great films, even if Hitchcock wasn’t a great guy.
I loved The Dark Side of Genius. Again, I’m a huge fan of Hitch’s work, so I may be biased about the book, but I found it fascinating. Any movie buff who likes Hitch’s stuff should read it. The reader gets so much more background and it makes watching the films so much more interesting.
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
This is another one of those books that I listened to because there’s a gaping hole in my education. After the adoption of the Constitution through to the Civil War, there wasn’t a detailed study of what was going on in the country in my education. The presidents between Jefferson to Lincoln didn’t get a lot of play. Or maybe I just don’t remember. But mostly I think they didn’t get a lot of attention.
So, I borrowed American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham to begin filling that hole.
Meacham said he wrote the book to show the contradictions that defined Jackson. He represents both the best and worst of us, and had an enormous capacity for both kindness and callous cruelty. If you were his friend, he’d do anything for you and never believe a bad word about you (see: The Petticoat Affair). If you weren’t? He was a ferocious opponent who would stop at nothing to win the argument or get his way (poor John C. Calhoun).
Andrew Jackson is one of those presidents nobody talks about anymore in any kind of connotation that isn’t completely negative. People use the term “genocide” when referring to Jackson’s policy of Indian removal. While there is absolutely no justification for this policy, which was incredibly racist and cruel, I think it’s a stretch to call it “genocide.” Don’t get me wrong, obviously the Road to Hell and everything, but part of reading this stuff is looking at context. Jackson wanted the Native Americans land, but wiping them out was never something he wanted to do. Jackson also believed he could only accommodate Indian self-rule if they were on lands west of the Mississippi River.
Naturally this drama took place in the South, because that bastion of liberty and equality just never stopped giving us shining examples of truly enlightened thinking. Some of these tribes were the same ones Washington tried to make peace with but failed because he couldn’t enforce the treaties he signed. One historian actually argued that Jackson’s policy saved some of these tribes, because the tribes that didn’t relocate from the southeast disappeared entirely. I thought that was a real stretch but I suppose it’s true? Preserving native cultures was clearly not Jackson’s intention either.
I liked this quote, that Meacham wrote, regarding Indian Removal policy.
“There is nothing redemptive about Jackson’s Indian policy, no moment, as with Lincoln and slavery, where the moderate on the morally urgent question did the right and brave thing. Not all great presidents were always good, and neither individuals nor nations are without evil.”
But there was a lot more to him than this one policy.
Jackson had no children but was a family man, loved children, and adopted two Indian children who he loved as his own (again, the whole “contradictions defined him” thing). He and his wife were guardian to his wife’s brother’s children after his brother died. He was a respected military leader who won a resounding victory over the British in the battle of New Orleans in the final battle of the War of 1812. He worked to bring democracy and independence to even the poorest of white people (but was an unrepentant slaveholder).
And Presidents that followed, including some of the Presidents we hold in highest esteem (Lincoln, FDR, Theodore Roosevelt, etc…) considered Jackson a great president. Jackson was a unionist above all other things. Without the Union, there could be no progress of anything else. Jackson actively opposed nullification in favor of a strong central government. He worked against those who proposed seccession. He changed the presidency to a tool to use directly on the behalf of the people who elected him rather than a mostly impotent position on the periphery of the government.
Jackson was a skilled politician and media manipulator. He, more or less, invented the Democratic party. He fought against the National Bank, believing it gave creditors too much power and the people at its mercy too little. His faith in the American people was second to none.
Understanding the world Jackson lived in helps us understand our own, because in a lot of ways, his political environment wasn’t so different from our own. The best and worst of Jackson is the best and worst of the United States. As Meacham writes:
“He was the most contradictory of men. A champion of extending freedom and democracy to even the poorest of whites, Jackson was an unrepentant slaveholder. A sentimental man who rescued an Indian orphan on a battlefield to raise in his home, Jackson was responsible for the removal of Indian tribes from their ancestral lands. An enemy of Eastern financial elites and a relentless opponent of the Bank of the United States, which he believed to be a bastion of corruption, Jackson also promised to die, if necessary, to preserve the power and prestige of the central government. Like us and our America, Jackson and his America achieved great things while committing grievous sins.”
I loved this look at Jackson’s time in the White House. American Lion helped me understand Jackson as a politician and a man. And I loved the voice of the man who read the audiobook (whose name I don’t know). This was truly a great audiobook and a balanced, interesting look at the seventh President of the United States.
All this said, considering he did support and sign the Indian Removal Policy which led to countless deaths, he should probably be off the money. On the other hand, considering he hated the National Bank, his being on the money (the most common bill!) is kind of the ultimate troll.
But that’s a debate for another day. We’ll fix the money in our own good time, I guess.
“The people, sir – the people will set things right.” – Andrew Jackson
Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
I first started reading about Huguette Clark, the subject of this book, back in college, maybe 2009 or 2010, as a news story on, I think, NBCNews.
At the time, she was 100+ years old, living in a hospital, and the reason she was in the news at all was because the New York district attorney was investigating wrong doing/abuse/mismanagement of her fortune by her shady lawyer and accountant.
She died in 2011, at 104 years old, having spent the last 20 or so years of her life living in a New York hospital.
Which brings us to Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr.
The aforementioned news story was (I believe) written by Dedman, who became aware of Clark when he encountered her property in Connecticut. The property was meticulously maintained and he spoke to the caretaker, who was well paid, but the owner hadn’t been there in years. Dedman, a reporter, started poking around, and found that Ms. Clark had three enormous, well maintained properties – one in New York City (a 5th Ave apartment), a property on the California Coast, and the property he’d seen in Connecticut.
He couldn’t figure out why she didn’t appear to live in any of them. He ended up contacting some of her family. Paul Clark Newell Jr. is a relative of hers – a great great nephew or something like that. Her family may not have been so great either, but Paul Clark Newell had reached out to his aunt some years earlier in an effort to get to know her because she was an elderly recluse with no immediate family of her own. He co-authored the book with Dedman based on what he knew about his family history and conversations with his aunt.
The book goes into detail about the life of Huguette’s father, Senator William Clark, and how he made a vast fortune, beginning as a mail carrier for the US postal service (a much more difficult job than it sounds like when you consider he was crossing the Rockies in the 1800s and through hostile Native American territory in Wyoming, Montana, etc…) and by eventually owning and running successful copper mines in the West. It should be noted that for the time, Clark’s employees were paid well and even had days off.
Senator Clark didn’t marry Huguette’s mother until he was much older. Huguette’s mother was originally sponsored by Senator Clark as a music student. Senator Clark had a first wife and other children long before Huguette came along, which explains how when William Clark was born Martin Van Buren was President of the United States, and when Huguette Clark passed away, Barack Obama was President of the United States.
The book then goes into Huguette’s life growing up, her adult life, and how she eventually came to be living in a hospital. For some reason – maybe it was the scandal that plagued her father’s time in office or because she was such a recluse who only ever quietly spent her money – but the current world doesn’t well remember William Clark, whose fortune was one of the largest in the United States during his lifetime and who was a senator from Montana from 1899 – 1907, and the world didn’t much notice or remember Huguette until Dedman wrote the news articles in 2009/10.
I found the whole book fascinating. I’m a history nerd anyway, so I loved all the history involved in telling Huguette’s story. The story is one of mystery and intrigue, that runs from before the Civil War, to the Guilded Age, to the 21st century battle for a huge inheritance.
But I think my favorite thing about the book was learning about Huguette, who I’d never have known otherwise, and who was so admirable in so many ways. She was so shy and so secretive that no photographs exist of her for decades, and she spent the last years of her life with doctors and nurses, buying gifts for others (people she knew and people she didn’t). Drawing on her papers, conversations with her and with her few friends and relatives, Empty Mansions reveals the portrait of an eccentric but kind and generous woman, and learning about her life made Empty Mansions one of my favorite books in 2015.
words in scarlet ink 