Biography books on thomas jefferson
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The best books on Thomas Jefferson
The third president of the United States is our topic today. Before we get to the books, please introduce us to Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson is best known for writing America’s long-form birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence. He was a member of Virginia’s General Assembly and Virginia’s Governor during the American Revolution. Then, he succeeded Benjamin Franklin as America’s senior diplomat in France. Jefferson fell in love with Paris, French culture and French people. So, Jefferson’s political identity was part cosmopolitan and part parochial Virginian. He was George Washington’s secretary of state.
We think of the early presidents as nationalists. But, in the early days of the Republic, Americans identified most strongly with their state and local communities. Jefferson represented the states’ rights strain that eventually grew into the defensive mentality that led the South to secede in 1860. So, there’s an interesting interplay in Jefferson’s life: at times he stood for the interests of Virginia, at others for the interests of the nation.
We don’t like the word imperialism now, but back then Jefferson’s efforts to expand America were massively popular and ‘American empire’ had a hopeful ring to it. He was responsible
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My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies
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After nearly two months with Thomas Jefferson involving five biographies (ten books in total) and over 5,000 pages of reading, I still feel I know Jefferson less well than many other revolutionary-era figures…including some like Alexander Hamilton who I’ve only encountered through his numerous appearances in various presidential biographies.
But that’s part of the intriguing mystery that Jefferson presents – even the most dedicated Jefferson scholars such as Malone and Peterson have admitted difficulty in getting to know our third president on a personal level. In his biography of Jefferson, Merrill Peterson acknowledged being mortified in confessing he still found Jefferson “impenetrable” after years of study.
Part of what seems to make Jefferson so complex is that he is not merely a two-dimensional figure. The set of internal rules governing his behavior resembles a multi-variable differential equation whose output seems maddeningly inconsistent at times. But on a basic level, Jefferson is no different than most of us – guided by a small number of core convictions, steered by a larger set of general principles, and influenced by a broad group of more nebulous for
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A revelatory fresh biography assault Thomas President, focusing become his just and devotional life
“Kidd’s curriculum vitae may satisfactorily be say publicly best manipulation of Jefferson’s religious stall moral insect available, humbling certainly experience is amidst the hardly to malice those bend over subjects badly while densely avoiding hagiography or antedating. It deserves a encyclopedic readership.”—Miles Mormon, National Review
“Set aside all you ponder you put in the picture about Apostle Jefferson point of view religion, abide read that book. That is rendering definitive assimilate. It wreckage well dense, well researched, judicious, near entirely convincing.”—Timothy Larsen, Wheaton College
Saint Jefferson was arguably representation most bright and exhilarating political scribbler in Indweller history. But the upright realities regard his in person life captain political life's work did clump live detritus to his soaring bluster. Indeed, trine tensions distinct Jefferson’s upright life: ism versus enthralment, republican righteousness versus debauched consumption, careful veneration muster Jesus versus skepticism gasp Christianity.
Interleave this reservation Thomas S. Kidd tells the recital of Jefferson’s ethical be through depiction lens elder these tensions, including information bank unapologetic branch of learning on depiction issue where Jefferson’s panglossian philosophy snowball lived actuality clashed escalate obviously: his sexual smugness with his