Author: Hannah Spahn Publisher: University of Virginia Press ISBN: 0813931681 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
Beginning with the famous opening to the Declaration of Independence ("When in the course of human events..."), almost all of Thomas Jefferson's writings include creative, stylistically and philosophically complex references to time and history. Although best known for his "forward-looking" statements envisioning future progress, Jefferson was in fact deeply concerned with the problem of coming to terms with the impending loss or fragmentation of the past. As Hannah Spahn shows in Thomas Jefferson, Time, and History, his efforts to promote an exceptionalist interpretation of the United States as the first nation to escape from the "crimes and calamities" of European history were complicated both by his doubts about the outcome of the American experiment and by his skepticism about the methods and morals of eighteenth-century philosophical history. Spahn approaches the conundrum of Jefferson's Janus-faced, equally forward- and backward-oriented thought by discussing it less as a matter of personal contradiction and paradox than as the expression of a late Newtonian Enlightenment, in a period between ancient and modern modes of explaining change in time. She follows Jefferson in his creation of an influential narrative of American and global history over the course of half a century, opening avenues into a temporal and historical imagination that was different from ours, and offering new assessments of the solutions Jefferson and his generation found (or failed to find) to central moral and political problems like slavery.
Author: Editors of TIME Publisher: Time Inc. Books ISBN: 1618932004 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 207
Book Description
Thomas Jefferson remains a potent influence in America more than 200 years after his birth. TIME examines his lasting and sometimes controversial legacy as revolutionary, president and diplomat through his political beliefs and battles, his extraordinary achievements, including the westward expansion of the young United States; as well as his letters and writings, from the Declaration of Independence to his own, personally edited version of the New Testament. TIME also explores Jefferson’s enduring influence on our culture, as the founding father of American architecture, our higher education system and the slow food movement--and even planting the seeds for America’s modern, flourishing wine industry.
Author: Brandon Marie Miller Publisher: Chicago Review Press ISBN: 1569769427 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 146
Book Description
Drawing heavily from the original letters and papers of Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries, this resource chronicles the world of the Founding Father who wrote the Declaration of Independence. From his early critiques of the colonial policies of Great Britain and King George III to his governmental roles as the first secretary of state, the minister to France, and the third president of the United States, Jefferson's groundbreaking achievements are described in historical context. The contradictions in Jefferson's character--most notably the fact that he owned 600 slaves in his lifetime despite penning the immortal phrase "all men are created equal"--are also explored, giving kids a full picture of this skilled politician. Creative activities that invite children to experience Jefferson's colonial America include designing a Palladian window, building a simple microscope, painting a "buffalo robe," and dancing a reel.
Author: Robert M. S. McDonald Publisher: University of Virginia Press ISBN: 081393897X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
Of all the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson stood out as the most controversial and confounding. Loved and hated, revered and reviled, during his lifetime he served as a lightning rod for dispute. Few major figures in American history provoked such a polarization of public opinion. One supporter described him as the possessor of "an enlightened mind and superior wisdom; the adorer of our God; the patriot of his country; and the friend and benefactor of the whole human race." Martha Washington, however, considered Jefferson "one of the most detestable of mankind"--and she was not alone. While Jefferson’s supporters organized festivals in his honor where they praised him in speeches and songs, his detractors portrayed him as a dilettante and demagogue, double-faced and dangerously radical, an atheist and "Anti-Christ" hostile to Christianity. Characterizing his beliefs as un-American, they tarred him with the extremism of the French Revolution. Yet his allies cheered his contributions to the American Revolution, unmasking him as the now formerly anonymous author of the words that had helped to define America in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson, meanwhile, anxiously monitored the development of his image. As president he even clipped expressions of praise and scorn from newspapers, pasting them in his personal scrapbooks. In this fascinating new book, historian Robert M. S. McDonald explores how Jefferson, a man with a manner so mild some described it as meek, emerged as such a divisive figure. Bridging the gap between high politics and popular opinion, Confounding Father exposes how Jefferson’s bifurcated image took shape both as a product of his own creation and in response to factors beyond his control. McDonald tells a gripping, sometimes poignant story of disagreements over issues and ideology as well as contested conceptions of the rules of politics. In the first fifty years of independence, Americans’ views of Jefferson revealed much about their conflicting views of the purpose and promise of America. Jeffersonian America
Author: Peter S. Onuf Publisher: University of Virginia Press ISBN: 0813934230 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
In The Mind of Thomas Jefferson, one of the foremost historians of Jefferson and his time, Peter S. Onuf, offers a collection of essays that seeks to historicize one of our nation’s founding fathers. Challenging current attempts to appropriate Jefferson to serve all manner of contemporary political agendas, Onuf argues that historians must look at Jefferson’s language and life within the context of his own place and time. In this effort to restore Jefferson to his own world, Onuf reconnects that world to ours, providing a fresh look at the distinction between private and public aspects of his character that Jefferson himself took such pains to cultivate. Breaking through Jefferson’s alleged opacity as a person by collapsing the contemporary interpretive frameworks often used to diagnose his psychological and moral states, Onuf raises new questions about what was on Jefferson’s mind as he looked toward an uncertain future. Particularly striking is his argument that Jefferson’s character as a moralist is nowhere more evident, ironically, than in his engagement with the institution of slavery. At once reinvigorating the tension between past and present and offering a new way to view our connection to one of our nation’s founders, The Mind of Thomas Jefferson helps redefine both Jefferson and his time and American nationhood.
Author: R. B. Bernstein Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0195181301 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
A short biography of Thomas Jefferson covers such topics as his life as a Virginia gentleman, his passionate belief in democracy, his defense of slavery, his relationship with Sally Hemings, and his contributions to America as a writer, inventor, and party leader.
Author: Natalie S. Bober Publisher: University of Virginia Press ISBN: 9780813927329 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
A biography of the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States who was also a noted inventor, architect, farmer, statesman, and educator.
Author: G. S. Wilson Publisher: University of Virginia Press ISBN: 081394130X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
When we think of Thomas Jefferson, a certain picture comes to mind for some of us, combining his physical appearance with our perception of his character. During Jefferson’s lifetime this image was already taking shape, helped along by his own assiduous cultivation. In Jefferson on Display, G. S. Wilson draws on a broad array of sources to show how Jefferson fashioned his public persona to promote his political agenda. During his long career, his image shifted from cosmopolitan intellectual to man of the people. As president he kept friends and foes guessing: he might appear unpredictably in old, worn, and out-of-date clothing with hair unkempt, yet he could as easily play the polished gentleman in a black suit, as he hosted small dinners in the President’s House that were noted for their French-inspired food and fine European wines. Even in retirement his image continued to evolve, as guests at Monticello reported being met by the Sage clothed in rough fabrics that he proudly claimed were created from his own merino sheep, leading Americans by example to manufacture their own clothing, free of Europe. By paying close attention to Jefferson’s controversial clothing choices and physical appearance--as well as his use of portraiture, architecture, and the polite refinements of dining, grooming, and conversation--Wilson provides invaluable new insight into this perplexing founder.
Author: John B. Boles Publisher: University of Virginia Press ISBN: 0813929970 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
Thomas Jefferson’s ideas have been so important in shaping the character and aspirations of the United States that it has proven impossible to think about the state of the nation at almost any moment without implicit or explicit reference to his words and actions. In similar fashion, each generation has understood Jefferson in the context of the central issues of its time. Jefferson has, for better or for worse, been a man for all seasons. The essays in this collection seek to update and reevaluate several key aspects of Jefferson’s attitudes and policies in light of the newest research and at the same time take care to consider his ideas about such controversial topics as race, gender, and religion in the context of his own time and place. Simultaneously, the contributing authors analyze the relevance of Jefferson for our own age, conscious of how contemporary judgments about slavery, religion, and Native Americans, for example, shape our coming to terms with the nation’s history. Here is no simple search for a usable past, but instead a tough-minded but fair examination of a complex man who in fundamental ways represents both the promise and the problems of the American experience. ContributorsJohn B. Boles, Rice University * Thomas E. Buckley, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University at Berkeley * Andrew Burstein, Louisiana State University * Randal L. Hall, Rice University * Peter J. Kastor, Washington University at St. Louis * Jan Ellen Lewis, Rutgers University * Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia * Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies * Adam Rothman, Georgetown University * Eva Sheppard Wolf, San Francisco State University
Author: Hannah Spahn
Author: Editors of TIME
Author: Brandon Marie Miller
Author: Robert M. S. McDonald
Author: Peter S. Onuf
Author: David A. Adler
Author: R. B. Bernstein
Author: Natalie S. Bober
Author: G. S. Wilson
Author: John B. Boles