Virginia
‘The Jeffersonians’ Review: Virginia Dynasty
Of the 45 American presidents, 11 have been a part of what could be referred to as a presidential cluster—people related in some shocking style. Eight of those have shared household connections: the Adamses, the Harrisons, the Roosevelts and the Bushes. The most important cluster, nevertheless, concerned no household ties, however lifelong connections that have been temporal, geographic, political and private.
In “The Jeffersonians: The Visionary Presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe,” Kevin Gutzman examines our third, fourth and fifth presidents, who dominated American politics within the early nineteenth century. They have been mates, political allies and neighbors, spending a lot of their lives inside 30 miles of one another in Virginia’s Piedmont.