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The Hemingses of Monticello
- An American Family
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 30 hrs and 36 mins
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Publisher's summary
Pulitzer Prize, History, 2009
National Book Award, Nonfiction, 2008
This epic work tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family's dispersal after Jefferson's death in 1826.It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children and Hemings's siblings, who shared a father with Jefferson's wife, Martha. The Hemingses of Monticello sets the family's compelling saga against the backdrop of Revolutionary America, Paris on the eve of its own revolution, 1790s Philadelphia, and plantation life at Monticello. Much anticipated, this book promises to be the most important history of an American slave family ever written.
Critic reviews
"This is a masterpiece brimming with decades of dedicated research and dexterous writing." ( Library Journal Starred Review)
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Brilliant scientist and witty conversationalist, best-selling author and architect of the great surveys that mapped the West after the Civil War, Clarence King was named by John Hay "the best and brightest of his generation". But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for 13 years he lived a double life - as the celebrated White explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a Black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd.
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Race and Identity
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They Were Her Property
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- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African-American history, this audiobook makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South's slave market.
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Women ARE just like men
- By Mary on 08-22-19
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Twilight at Monticello
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- By: Alan Pell Crawford
- Narrated by: James Boles
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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After Leaving Office
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Jesse J. Holland's The Invisibles is the first book to tell the story of the executive mansion's most unexpected residents: the African American slaves who lived with the US presidents who owned them. Interest in African Americans and the White House are at an all-time high due to the historic presidency of Barack Obama and the soon-to-be-opened Smithsonian National Museum of African American Culture and History.
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Riveting Book
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A Perfect Union
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An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, incisive portrait of the early days of the republic—and the birth of modern politics hen the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with Britain in 1812, Dolley Madison arrived, alongside her husband James.
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A great first lady!
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New England Bound
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Story
In a work that fundamentally recasts the history of colonial America, Wendy Warren shows how the institution of slavery was inexorably linked with the first century of English colonization of New England. While most histories of slavery in early America confine themselves to the Southern colonies and the Caribbean, New England Bound forcefully widens the historical aperture to include the entirety of English North America.
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Don't waste your time or money
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The Honor Code
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Overall
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Story
In this groundbreaking work, Kwame Anthony Appiah, hailed as "one of the most relevant philosophers today" (New York Times Book Review), changes the way we understand human behavior and the way social reform is brought about. In brilliantly arguing that new democratic movements over the last century have not been driven by legislation from above, Appiah explores the end of the duel in aristocratic England, the tumultuous struggles over foot binding in 19th-century China, the uprising of ordinary people against Atlantic slavery, and much more.
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Horribly Boring
- By Merle N. Savedow on 02-10-21
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Frontier Grit
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- By: Marianne Monson
- Narrated by: Caroline Shaffer
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Discover the stories of 12 women who heard the call to settle the West and who came from all points of the globe to begin their journeys. As a slave Clara watched helplessly as her husband and children were sold, only to be reunited with her youngest daughter as a free woman six decades later. As a young girl, Charlotte hid her gender to escape a life of poverty and became the greatest stagecoach driver who ever lived. As a Native American, Gertrude fought to give her people a voice and to educate leaders about the ways and importance of America's native people.
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only ok
- By Jane Orr on 06-14-21
By: Marianne Monson
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The Devil's Half Acre
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- Narrated by: Deanna Anthony
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New York Times best-selling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the “Devil’s Half Acre”. When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre”, a school where Black men could fulfill their dreams.
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Preachy
- By Elizabeth Combs on 09-13-22
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Sugar in the Blood
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In the late 1630s, lured by the promise of the New World, Andrea Stuart's earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way, binding together ambitious White entrepreneurs and enslaved Black workers in a strangling embrace....
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A sweet, historical gem
- By Adrian on 06-29-13
By: Andrea Stuart
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What listeners say about The Hemingses of Monticello
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Phillip Goodson
- 12-13-08
Worried at first
For the first 30 minutes or so I was pretty worried that this was going to be very dry and disappointing. After getting into it, however, I found that it was extremely informative. Rather than just providing sterile facts, it really goes into the laws and history and helps the listener understand what contributed to creating the environment that the Hemingses lived in. I would highly recommend this book.
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51 people found this helpful
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Overall
- D. Littman
- 11-30-08
unparalleled treatment of the slave experience
This is an outstanding book, its National Book Award for 2008 well-deserved. And it is an outstanding audiobook too, not too dense to be followed on earphones or car-speakers, but also not a "popular history" made up of so much fluff & trivia to keep the reader's attention. It is very well narrated too ... the narrator goes at a good verbal speed, pronounces things correctly (often not the case in audiobooks), good emphasis. Not at all boring or dissertation-like. I am not sure what book the previous reviewer was listening to, but that reviewer's experience did not resemble my experience in the slightest.
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46 people found this helpful
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Story
- R. Campbell
- 08-06-18
Jefferson's Woman and Her Family
This is the story of the Hemings family whom Thomas Jefferson famously owned for 5 decades. The story begins with Elizabeth Hemings, Sally's mother. Elizabeth was purchased by John Wayles who had several children with her. When Jefferson marries Martha Wayles, her father John gave Jefferson several Hemings family members. When John Wayles dies, Jefferson inherits farms and slaves including the remaining Hemings family members. After the death of his wife, Jefferson becomes involved with one of Elizabeth's children, Sally. This is not historical fiction, it is a straight historical study of documents, diaries, letters and archeology. After 250 years the relationship between Jefferson and his slave Sally Heming are presented in the context of Jefferson's relationship with her whole family - it's complicated.
It is fascinating to learn the details of so many aspects of Jefferson's relationship to slavery and the Hemings family. Sally would have been 3/4 white and the half sister of his dead wife. On a 5 year trip to Paris, Jefferson pays her and her brother salaries, pays for medical expenses including small-pox inoculation as well as education and experiences that would give them a taste of life as international diplomats. Since France had no slavery, Sally and her brother James were legally free, yet they worked with Jefferson to make a deal to return to Virginia. Both received special allowances that made it their choice to live as slaves at Monticello rather than stay in France as free people. Again, it's complicated.
There is no excuse for slavery, but there was nuance this book explores. It is easy to apply political correctness to the knowledge now widely acknowledged that Jefferson not only owned slaves but had 6 children with the poor beleaguered Sally Hemings, but Annette Gordon-Reed doesn't bring political correctness, she brings scholarship and the stories of individuals who made individual decisions. Fascinating, well read and enjoyable.
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42 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Dianne
- 06-12-09
Fascinating
I loved the book, but I have a considerable interest in history, anthropology and the law. I have read the other reviews, and believe they reflect that this book is not for everyone, but is very much for some. I found the details about the legal system pertaining to slavery in Paris, Virginia, and elsewhere in the U.S. VERY interesting. I also loved the detail about the daily life of Sally Hemings, her brother, Thomas Jefferson and his household. For some, an abridged version would probably be a better choice, but I loved all the detail.
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35 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Elisabeth W.
- 11-14-08
Like listening to a dissertation
Dry, dry dry! I was excited to listen to this book but was sorely disappointed. It is written in a very academic style in which the author verifies her point over and over again with citations that would be better left for footnotes. I felt like the author was preparing to defend her dissertation in front of a review committee. Couldn't take it any more after 5 hours.
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30 people found this helpful
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Overall
- W.Denis
- 05-23-09
A very believable review
Using the same documentary evidence as Jefferson's many historians but much common sense in arriving at conclusions, the author has built a believable case and convinced me that the days of protecting the icon from "scandal" are over. In fact she convinced me that there was no scandal in the fact of a lonely man's attraction to a beautiful young girl who happened to be his beloved wife's half-sister.
Ms. Gordon-Reed is so thorough in all this that at times one gets to be a little anxious for the next part to begin. Stay with it - it's well worth it.
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19 people found this helpful
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Performance
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Story
- Leslie D.
- 11-15-11
Fascinating Topic; Tedious Exposition
This book was doubtless ground-breaking, and I found the historical facts to be fascinating. But writing was tediously repetitive, and the reader/narrator really hard to endure for long periods of time. Although I'd like to finish the book, I don't know if I can get through it. Probably a better "read" than "listen."
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16 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Brandon
- 04-14-10
Interesting but...
Anette Gordon-Reed's book is a long and well researched work. Parts of it are very informative. However, she puts a lot of thoughts into her characters heads which may be fine when talking about Jefferson or Martha Jefferson Randolph who left many many many letters to be poured over and analyzed.
The Hemmingses have no such record and while I didn't always disagree with her assumption about what they were thinking and feeling I did often think it was pretty presumptuous. I don't profess to know the thoughts of people in complex living situations who are living today... much less ones living 200 hears ago.
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- Peter
- 12-25-08
For Historians Only
Unless you're a historian, or descended from the line of Hemings or Jefferson, or both, you might find this book to be a tedious go. I did not even get through part one of four before giving up, so buried was I in incredible minutia in headache-procucing detail. I did find some information that was of interest, but nowhere near enough to make this an entertaining "read." Unlike another historical book that comes to mind, Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmate," about colonial America and written with wit and compassion, read by the author herself with those same qualities, "The Hemingses of Monticello" is both written and read in a dry and uninspired style (IMHO). I don't mean that this is a _bad_ book by any means, but if you're looking to be entertained while you learn, try something else.
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- Michelle
- 03-02-12
Exhausting!
What disappointed you about The Hemingses of Monticello?
This is the only book of about 25 that I have listened to from Audible that I was not able to finish. I enjoyed the subject and support Gordon-Read's agenda. But why does she have to preach little sermons after every little fact? What redundancy? What a berating she gives to the past players of history? Seeing as someone as great as Jefferson had fallen into sick attitudes about another race, I doubt that this author, if living in the same time and under the same circumstances, would have done any differently. Anyway, while listening, I felt like a teenager who is relentlessly being scolded by a parent for something they have not done. It was really unbearable. The narrator has a whiney voice that lines up with the berating author. I wanted the facts, not her overdone opinions. As a result I could not finish the book and am sorry for that.
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13 people found this helpful