Most Popular Books by Henry Wiencek

Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Master of the Mountain, Henry Wiencek''s eloquent, persuasive book—based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson''s papers—opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson''s world. We must, Wiencek suggests, follow the money. So far, historians have offered only easy irony or paradox to explain this extraordinary Founding Father who was an emancipationist in his youth and then recoiled from his own inspiring rhetoric and equivocated about slavery; who enjoyed his renown as a revolutionary leader yet kept some of his own children as slaves. But Wiencek''s Jefferson is a man of business and public affairs who makes a success of his debt-ridden plantation thanks to what he calls the "silent profits" gained from his slaves—and thanks to a skewed moral universe that he and thousands of others readily inhabited. We see Jefferson taking out a slave-equity line of credit with a Dutch bank to finance the building of Monticello and deftly creating smoke screens when visitors are dismayed by his apparent endorsement of a system they thought he''d vowed to overturn. It is not a pretty story. Slave boys are whipped to make them work in the nail factory at Monticello that pays Jefferson''s grocery bills. Parents are divided from children—in his ledgers they are recast as money—while he composes theories that obscure the dynamics of what some of his friends call "a vile commerce." Many people of Jefferson''s time saw a catastrophe coming and tried to stop it, but not Jefferson. The pursuit of happiness had been badly distorted, and an oligarchy was getting very rich. Is this the quintessential American story?

An Imperfect God is a major new biography of Washington, and the first to explore his engagement with American slavery When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father''s engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman. Washington was born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington''s attitudes began to change. He and the other framers enshrined slavery in the Constitution, but, Wiencek shows, even before he became president Washington had begun to see the system''s evil. Wiencek''s revelatory narrative, based on a meticulous examination of private papers, court records, and the voluminous Washington archives, documents for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington''s determination to emancipate his slaves. He acted too late to keep the new republic from perpetuating slavery, but his repentance was genuine. And it was perhaps related to the possibility--as the oral history of Mount Vernon''s slave descendants has long asserted--that a slave named West Ford was the son of George and a woman named Venus; Wiencek has new evidence that this could indeed have been true. George Washington''s heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced portrait: now we see Washington in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time.

As the country enters a new era of conversations around race and the enduring impact of slavery, The Hairstons traces the rise and fall of the largest slaveholding family in the Old South as its descendants—both black and white—grapple with the twisted legacy of their past. Spanning two centuries of one family’s history, The Hairstons tells the extraordinary story of the Hairston clan, once the wealthiest family in the Old South and the largest slaveholder in America. With several thousand black and white members, the Hairstons of today share a complex and compelling history: divided in the time of slavery, they have come to embrace their past as one family. For seven years, journalist Henry Wiencek combed the far-reaching branches of the Hairston family tree to piece together a family history that involves the experiences of both plantation owners and their slaves. Crisscrossing the old plantation country of Virginia, North Carolina, and Mississippi, The Hairstons reconstructs the triumphant rise of the remarkable children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the enslaved as they fought to take their rightful place in mainstream America. It also follows the white descendants through the decline and fall of the Old South, and uncovers the hidden history of slavery''s curse—and how that curse followed slaveholders for generations. Expertly weaving stories of horror, tragedy, and heroism, The Hairstons addresses our nation’s attempt to untangle the twisted legacy of the past, and provides a transcendent account of the human power to overcome.

A history of the successful toys, LEGO bricks, describing some of the things that can be built with them.

In 1900, just a few months after the deadly hurricane of September, W. L. Moody Jr. and his family moved into the four-story mansion at the corner of Broadway and Twenty-sixth Street in Galveston. For the next eight decades, the Moody family occupied the 28,000-square-foot home: raising a family, creating memories, building business empires, and contributing their considerable wealth and influence for the betterment of their beloved city. In 1983, Hurricane Alicia damaged the mansion, and Mary Moody Northen, eldest child of W. L. Moody Jr., moved out so a major restoration could begin. When the mansion opened to the public as a museum, education center, and location for community gatherings in 1991, it had been restored to its original grandeur. The Mary Moody Northen Endowment then commissioned award-winning author Henry Wiencek to write a history of the Moodys of Galveston and their celebrated home. Robert L. Moody Sr., grandson of W. L. Moody Jr. and nephew of Mary Moody Northen, contributes a foreword, giving a brief introduction and personal tone to the book, which also features fifteen color photographs of the Moodys and their home. An epilogue by E. Douglas McLeod summarizes the family’s accomplishments and developments associated with the mansion since Northen’s death in 1986. The Moodys of Galveston and Their Mansion is a must-read for Galvestonians, for the thousands of visitors who tour the mansion each year, and for anyone interested in the captivating tale of this influential and generous family and their magnificent house.

Covers Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Text and lavish photographs present antiquities from the Olmec, Maya, Mixtec, and Aztec cultures of ancient Mexico.

Covers Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

A beautifully illustrated guide to museums and historical sites in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

More than 150 mansions open to the public.

Text and lavish photographs present antiquities from the Chavin, Paracas, Moche, Inca, Chimu and Columbian Indian cultures that flourished in ancient Columbia and Peru.

Text and lavish photographs present Japanese history 710-1868 and the associated artistic treasures.

From an unrestored masterpiece such as the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston, South Carolina, to a farmhouse in upstate New York, inhabited only by a bird nesting in the bathroom sink, Old Houses profiles 20 houses whose peeling paint, faded fabrics, and antique furniture impart a surprising elegance and beauty. An unusual volume, this book will appeal to historians, restoration specialists, and style-conscious homeowners lookingfor new ideas form examples of the past. Over 250 full-color photographs.

From The Hermitage, outside Nashville, Tennessee, with its mixture of Georgian and Greek Revival, to a traditional Creole house with classical detailing in Louisiana, Plantations of the Old South is a fond reminder of the refinement, innovation, and exquisite design found in these grand Southern originals. 100 full-color photos.

Shows and describes six historic mansions, including Monticello and Mount Vernon, and describes the furnishings, grounds, and background of each home