Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780465094684)

From an eminent scholar of the American South, the first full-scale biography of Thomas Jefferson since 1970

Not since Merrill Peterson's Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation has a scholar attempted to write a comprehensive biography of the most complex Founding Father. In Jefferson, John B. Boles plumbs every facet of Thomas Jefferson's life, all while situating him amid the sweeping upheaval of his times. We meet Jefferson the politician and political thinker -- as well as Jefferson the architect, scientist, bibliophile, paleontologist, musician, and gourmet. We witness him drafting of the Declaration of Independence, negotiating the Louisiana Purchase, and inventing a politics that emphasized the states over the federal government -- a political philosophy that shapes our national life to this day.

Boles offers new insight into Jefferson's actions and thinking on race. His Jefferson is not a hypocrite, but a tragic figure -- a man who could not hold simultaneously to his views on abolition, democracy, and patriarchal responsibility. Yet despite his flaws, Jefferson's ideas would outlive him and make him into nothing less than the architect of American liberty.

Author: John B. Boles
ISBN-10: 0465094686
ISBN-13: 9780465094684
Publisher: Basic Books
Language: English
Published: 04/25/2017
Pages: 640
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.90lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.30w x 1.90d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 03/01/2017
Publishers Weekly 03/13/2017
Library Journal 04/15/2017 pg. 94
Booklist 05/01/2017 pg. 53
Choice 09/01/2017