When lofty ideals turn to human disaster

Thomas Jefferson has spawned a massive scholarly industry that shows no sign of letting up. He is so dominant a figure - not merely in early American history, but in the shaping of the modern democratic debate - that he exercises an irresistible lure for an army of scholars.

His image and his home adorn US currency, and his reputation and iconic status continue to attract millions of visitors to his mountaintop home at Monticello. Today the house, which has spectacular views to the west and the Blue Ridge Mountains, impresses upon the visitor the power of Jefferson's intellect, imagination and his universal importance. Just what plans did this great American visionary have for that continent he gazed at from Monticello? Roger G. Kennedy wrestles with this massive issue. The result is a complex, sprawling book, clearly inspired by an agnostic admiration for Jefferson but ever alert to the remarkable complexities of American history in the period. Kennedy is also keen to tell a compelling tale - and wants to tell us of what might have been: how the US might have become a very different kind of society.

Looking back, it all seems inevitable. Once the American colonies broke from their British colonial masters, and once the republic was in place, the westerly movement of people and economic systems from the east seemed preordained. So too was the American hunger for land controlled by others - by the French up the Mississippi and by the Spanish in Florida and further west, in what became modern Texas and California. But what precise form of land settlement and economic usage would the new republic take on in this drift to the west and south?

Jefferson's idea, of a land of free, independent yeomen, had enormous appeal. It resonated with the basic ambitions of humble settlers, and it accorded with the lofty ideals of a number of the founding fathers. There were, however, two serious obstacles. First, the Native Americans whose lands the migratory American settlers would inevitably want. Second, there existed, at the heart of the republic, black chattel slavery (the source of Jefferson's livelihood). The new republic was from the first an empire in embryo; it sought its growth and fulfilment via the acquisition of other peoples' land. Was there ever a chance that Jefferson's ideal - of a society based on the yeoman farmer - would succeed? Our problem with Jefferson is understanding just how complex a man he was: a mix of lofty democratic ideals yet a slave owner, a man of elevated principles grappling with crude economic realities. He was, at once, a man of overarching sensibility, yet all tempered by the necessity of political compromise.

Jefferson's vision for the west was moderated by the existence of the one institution that had shaped Virginia - black slavery. Tobacco and slavery created an environmental and human disaster. Yet for many, slavery seemed the key to future American prosperity, especially with the rise of the cotton industry after 1800. Native Americans saw their lands vanish into the maws of trading companies and converted into cotton plantations worked by millions of enslaved African-Americans. In the process, the cause of the yeoman farmer was lost. Thus, in the mid-19th century, slave-grown staples from the Americas dominated the Anglo-American trading and commercial nexus.

This book has a grand sweep. Kennedy reveals the complexities of this American genius and writes well of what might have been at this critical juncture in the history of the republic.

James Walvin is professor of history, York University.