PositiveWall Street JournalIn Mr. Ferling’s reconstruction of the Yorktown campaign, he shows how the choices the British faced might have led to different outcomes ... Mr. Ferling’s discussion of what Cornwallis might or might not have done when French warships appeared in the Chesapeake demonstrates the strength of this well researched but sometimes unfocused book and its weakness. Less concerned, apparently, with the war than with the planning of the war, Mr. Ferling often seems to devote more words to what didn’t happen as to what did. His fair-minded assessments of the decisions commanders made or did not make, based on the information they had, will be of greater interest to specialists than to general readers.
Alan Taylor
MixedThe Wall Street Journal... unsparing ... Mr. Taylor seems to hold Jefferson somehow responsible for all this. His sour portrait of the \'philosopher,\' as he sometimes refers to Jefferson, reflects the current disdain among the intelligentsia for a man who, until the past couple of decades, was widely admired. Mr. Taylor’s Jefferson is a vain and preening poseur ... Mr. Taylor does a splendid job of documenting the sordid goings-on at William & Mary and the University of Virginia, establishing how saturated in slavery they both were. The irony is that the enslaved men, women and children whose mistreatment he appropriately finds appalling seem to have so little independent identity in his book. They have no agency, as academics might say. They exist almost exclusively as victims whose presence in any story—and he has rich ones to tell—is to reveal the venal and sadistic nature of their oppressors.
Albert Louis Zambone
PositiveThe Wall Street JournalAdmirable ... Mr. Zambone tells Morgan’s story with gusto and wit. There are also useful insights.
