The Hamilton bug recently got to me, so I was in the mood to
read some American history. Jefferson’s
America by Julie M. Fenster seemed like a good surrogate. A founding father
is a founding father, right? And the cover didn’t hurt, either. I love the
hand-drawn map effect, and it’s not your typical cover that’s just a portrait of
the person the book is about, the reason for which soon became clear. I guess I
should have seen this coming since the subject of the title is technically
America, but my Hamilton-addled brain only saw the Jefferson part. I thought it
would be a book about Jefferson’s presidency. It’s actually much more about the
different expeditions that Jefferson sent to find and set borders for the
United States. The book goes into the relationships between the travelers and
the people they encounter. It’s interesting to see the interactions with Native
Americans, the French, and the Spanish, because the groups all want the same land
but are also happy to get along if possible. Kind of. It definitely feels like
we see the travels in terms of people rather than through dry descriptions of
geography and surveying.
This book covers several exploration quests, and it could
feel repetitive after a while but the author sprinkles in enough loony stories
to keep things interesting. Seriously, some bizarre stuff happens on these
adventures. It took me about a month to read the 368-page book, though I’ll
attribute that to (a) a bit of a reading slump I’ve been in lately and (b)
nonfiction being more of an aspirational genre for me. If you are trying to
start reading more nonfiction, you might want to pick a more thrilling topic.
However, if you’re interested in the time period (the beginning of the 19th
century) or the topic, Jefferson’s
America is a good one to check out.
3 out of 5 stars
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
