Summary of Simon Winchester's The Men Who United the States

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Jefferson had a lifelong fascination with trees. He thought of them as his favorite type of plants, and he went to great effort and expense to place those he liked best around Monticello. #2 Monticello faced west, and if you looked straight across the estate, you could see all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains. But today, this is no longer the case. The trees have grown high, and someone sitting where the president liked to take his evening ease would not be able to see in the summer his blue remembered hills. #3 Thomas Jefferson was a man with many contradictions, but his fascination with the American West was not one of them. He was obsessively interested in how the vast majority of America’s land could be apportioned among its growing population. #4 The American settlers who lived beyond the Appalachians were initially cut off from the American mainstream, and there was talk of secession. But they were the first beneficiaries of one of Jefferson’s great ideas: the right to own land.