“Master of the Mountain” makes Jonathan Yardley’s Best Books of 2012
December 9, 2012 1 Comment
From “My best books of the year” by Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post:
“A fine book that fits no precise category is “Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves,” Henry Wiencek’s devastating picture of the slaveocracy maintained by the author of the Declaration of Independence at his plantations at Monticello and elsewhere. The complexities of race in America have preoccupied Wiencek for years and have now produced three exceptional books (the others are “The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White” and “An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America”), of which this may be the best. Wiencek goes far beyond the much-told story of Jefferson and Sally Hemings to leave no doubt that, given the choice between the economic well-being of his holdings and the rights of the enslaved people who kept them humming, the slaves did not come first. It is not a pretty story, but Wiencek tells it very well.”
Clink the link under “Blog Roll” to see the Yardley article.
Henry Wiencek 
I saw the book on the Hairston’s. I have Hairston’s in my family. The look Caucasian and some members of their family came to my great uncle Herbert Ganaway’s funeral. My family is from West Virginia and my great grandma Pocahontas Ganaway, a full blood Cherokee was taken off the reservation in Carolina, and she helped to raise me. My family is also the Eury family. My moms name was Virginia Eury Hairston. Is their a relationship to the Hairston’s in your book, I wonder.