Michael Farquhar dishes the dirt on some famous Americans.
Many of the scandals referred to in Farquhar's title are familiar (Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton's duel; Ben Franklin's animosity toward his son; Robert Lincoln's commitment of his mother to an insane asylum), but there are quite a few that strike a cord. Thomas Jefferson's brother Randolph for one. Apparently he couldn't be trusted to manage his own affairs and one of Jefferson's slaves refers to him as "one mighty simple man--used to come out among the black people, play the fiddle and dance half the night." Unfortunately, this account is only one-page long, and Farquhar makes no mention of the fact that it may have been Randolph rather than Thomas who impregnated Sally Hemings.
Some of the other highlights (or lowlights) from GREAT AMERICAN SCANDALS involve James Buchanan's sexual preference; J. Edgar Hoover's vindictiveness; and some direct quotes from Richard Nixon's Oval Office tapes. And there's an especially eerie section on what happened to some famous corpses, including Tom Paine's and John Paul Jones's.
The section on the Salem Witch trials shows how duplicitous human beings, even young ones, can be. According to Farquhar, life in Salem was so dull that the girls made the whole thing up to get attention.
Despite the rehashing of some well-known historical episodes, SCANDALS is a fast read and well-worth the cost of the book. Click here to post or read comments.
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