American Histories: Carlin Romano on America the Philosophical and Henry Wiencek on Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves
Saturday, Nov. 17, 12:00 p.m., Room 8301 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
Author(s) and Guest(s)
Carlin Romano
Carlin Romano argues that America towers as the most philosophical culture in the history of the world, an unprecedented marketplace of truth and argument that far surpasses even ancient Greece. America the Philosophical (Knopf, $35.00) introduces readers to a nation whose existences most still doubt: a dynamic, deeply stimulating network of people and places drawn together by shared excitement about ideas. “. . . a hugely enlightening compendium of intellectual heresy.”—The Buffalo News. Romano, former president of the National Book Critics Circle, is Critic-at-Large of The Chronicle of Higher Education and literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer for 25 years.
Henry Wiencek
How could the progressive idealist who composed the fiery rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence—who called slavery “an abominable crime”—remain a slaveholder his entire life, and even help to expand slavery? Wiencek’s latest book, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $28.00) suggests that we follow the money. Wiencek show us a Thomas Jefferson who began to see slaves as an excellent investment not long after the founding of the new nation. And while he continued to speak against slavery, Jefferson did nothing to curb the practice, and in fact did much to modernize and expand it. Wiencek’s numerous books include The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White, which won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award in Biography in 1999, and An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America.
Schedule
Location
Miami Book Fair International * Miami Dade College
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132
Room 8301 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
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