“Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty,” by John Boles

Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl Dumas Malone’s six volume biography of Thomas Jefferson is nearing the half-century mark since publication.  Joseph Ellis’s biography appeared in 1996, followed by other biographies, some of which own a “tabloid” quality. Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses of Monticello, however, is an insightful consideration of a story largely expunged from history […]

“Lions of the West,” by Robert Morgan

Robert Morgan.  Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion.  Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2011. Good histories don’t just tell stories; they make arguments.  Robert Morgan’s arguments in Lions of the West, subtle though they are, run as follows: historians and storytellers cannot help but view dramatic […]