Joseph Wheelan, a graduate of the University of Wyoming and University of Colorado, Denver, was for twenty-six years an editor and reporter for the Associated Press and the Casper Star-Tribune (Wyoming). Author of Jefferson's War, also available from Carroll & Graf, he lives in North Carolina with his wife, Pat.
Wheelan (Jefferson's War), a former AP reporter and editor, provides a highly engaging account of Aaron Burr's trial for treason and the events leading up to it. The author challenges Burr's reputation as one of the most corrupt and despicable figures in American history. Indeed, Wheelan contends that Thomas Jefferson was intent on destroying Burr and was a key force behind his trial, which was in effect a witch hunt. Wheelan clearly describes the trial's significance in the ascendance of an independent and powerful judiciary. Burr, Thomas Jefferson, and John Marshall, who served as the trial's judge, are the three main characters examined in this stimulating book, which focuses on Burr's life and travails. The lively narrative moves quickly, but its pace slows when the author endeavors to analyze the trial's minutiae. Recommended for larger public, academic, and law libraries.-Ted Pollack, Public Access Law Lib., New York City Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Thomas Jefferson is depicted here as a venal and vindictive opportunist who, during his second term as president, attempted to abuse the federal judicial system to persecute his one-time vice-president and chief political rival, Aaron Burr. Conversely, Wheelan, a former editor and reporter with the AP, renders Burr as a complex, flawed politico who stood in the dock charged, excessively, with treason after a misguided attempt to conquer Spain's holdings in North America and establish a rival American republic. The man Wheelan shows running interference between these two founding lions is the only true hero in the narrative: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. Partisans for either Jefferson or Burr may debate Wheelan's portrayal of their respective heroes, but they are bound to come out agreeing with the author that Marshall-whom Jefferson hated with a ferocity rivaled only by his feelings against Burr-seized and saved the day during the trial. Burr was acquitted in 1807 thanks to Marshall's strictly interpreting the Constitution's definition of treason, ensuring through his opinion that similar unfounded charges could never again be used by a president against a political enemy. Wheeler (Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror, 1801-1805) offers an elegantly written and smartly conceived revisionist history that is sure to engage and entertain. Agent, Ed Knappman, New England Publishing Assoc. (Feb. 8) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
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