Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase

The plantation system is Kennedy's bete noir in this wide ranging account of the economy and politics of the south during Jefferson's political ascendancy. He is critical of the plantation mentality of Jefferson's class, who felt it was cheaper to move on to new lands than to use good farming practices. That mentality led to a dependence on foreign markets, single crops, the expansion of slavery and ultimately, to civil war. He is unsparing in his criticism of what he calls Jefferson's persistent and deep anti-black animus, which he feels in turn affected Jefferson's dislike of industrialization and of cities in general. "Throughout most of his career, Jefferson was too constrained by prejudice against artisans and multiracial towns to show more give support to urbanization in the South" (with the exception of Eli Whitney's cotton gin and the manufacturers in Richmond) . . . "The slaves seemed ungrateful and the yeoman unworthy". Kennedy's reading is broad and deep, as it is in his other books, but he makes frequent assertions about Jefferson's motives and psychic needs which I find are often unsupported. I have no argument with his characterization of the effects of the plantation system, but the overriding impression I take away is one of regret for what might have been for blacks, Indians, and the early republic. show less

While making some points of interest, particularly in regards to the conditions at Monticello, this book is flawed by the basic problem that Roger Kennedy never learned the aphorism that one man's conspiracy is another man's affinity group. The "lost cause" of the title is Jefferson's concept of the United States becoming an agrarian republic of yeoman farmers, an aspiration crippled (in Kennedy's view) by Jefferson compromising his vision by being unwilling to break with his planter brethern on any significant issue. Thus leading to the spread of the plantation system with all its ills of ethnic cleansing, slavery and environmental degradations; rather a large onus to put on one man, no matter how influential.

Where Kennedy really goes show more off the deep end is with his interpretation of the Louisiana Purchase, which has all the hallmarks of a conspiracy theory in that it's not capable of being falsified. This is not to mention that Kennedy gives every indication of not understanding international trade and politics. When Kennedy coined the prolix phrase "textile imperial-colonialism," instead of using the perfectly applicable term "neo-colonialism" to the Anglo-American commercial realtionship I should have put this book aside. show less

Kennedy gives a totally different, critical slant on the world of Jefferson that is at times funny yet insightful, Kirkus reviews Kennedy as "penchant for unsubstantiated psychobabble"