Thank you, Yale University Press, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Mr. Book just finished Beyond Jefferson: The Hemingses, the Randolphs, and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America, by Christia Dierksheide.

The first two chapters were about Jefferson’s grandson-in-law and his personal secretary in the 1820s who then became the executor of his estate. Neither of their stories were that interesting.

The book got better when it moved to the issues of slavery and race. That’s where you could really see Jefferson’s influence. The two grandsons who were portrayed, Thomas Jefferson Randolph and Merriweather Lewis Randolph also turned out to be people of low character, just like grandpa. Then, the chapters on Jefferson and Sally Hemmings’s son, Madison, and their grandson, J.W. Jefferson, were the two most interesting chapters in the book.

I give this book a B+.

Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a B+ equates to 4 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

Mr. Book finished reading this on November 7, 2024.