Jefferson's Great Gamble
The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon and the Men behind the Louisiana Purchase
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Bestseller! The fascinating story of how four great men fought for the Louisiana Purchase, changing the future of our nation.
Jefferson’s Great Gamble tells the incredible story of how four leaders of an upstart nation—Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Livingston—risked the future of their country and their own careers; outwitted Napoleon Bonaparte, the world’s most powerful ruler; and secured a new future for the United States of America.
For two years before the Louisiana Purchase, the nine principal players in the deal watched France and the United States approach the brink of war over the most coveted spot on the planet: a bustling port known as New Orleans. And until the breakthrough moment when a deal was secured, the men who steered their countries through the tense and often beguiling negotiations knew only that the futures of both nations were at stake.
Jefferson’s Great Gamble is an extraordinary work that redefines one of the most important and overlooked events in American history. To read Jefferson’s Great Gamble is to experience the tense days and nights leading to a decision that changed the face of the world. From the early American infighting to the heated French negotiations to the battle needed years later to secure the purchase, this new history is a story of dedicated men, each driven by love of country, who created an event that Robert Livingston called "the noblest work of our lives."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this bicentennial year of the Louisiana Purchase, it's hard to imagine a more lively, shrewd and vivid narrative of the tangled events leading to it than this book. Compared to Roger Kennedy's zigzagging, unfocused Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause(look for a review next week), Cerami's book is notable for its readability and clarity. When he occasionally strays from his subject, he stumbles badly and shouldn't be taken as an authority on history in other times; nor is his tale based on the most recent, pertinent scholarship and available documents. But about the geopolitical and diplomatic circumstances of the purchase, Cerami (A Marshall Plan for the 1990s, etc.) is a master. His greatest achievement is to bring all of the characters involved not only the well-known figures like Napoleon, Jefferson and James Monroe, but also the less famous but equally significant ones such as Robert Livingston, Louis-Andr Pichon and Fran ois de Barb -Marbois brilliantly to life. Cerami's book will not satisfy those looking to understand the larger significance of the sudden doubling of American territory its implications for slavery, politics and the emergence of the U.S. as a continental and world power. But anyone wanting to read the story of a momentous turning point in American history, a story of diplomatic maneuvering and international politics, will be hard-pressed to find a better version than this. Illus.
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