Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781108470964)

In Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus, Wilson Jeremiah Moses provides a critical assessment of Thomas Jefferson and the Jeffersonian influence. Scholars of American history have long debated the legacy of Thomas Jefferson. However, Moses deviates from other interpretations by positioning himself within an older, 'Federalist' historiographic tradition, offering vigorous and insightful commentary on Jefferson, the man and the myth. Moses specifically focuses on Jefferson's complexities and contradictions. Measuring Jefferson's political accomplishments, intellectual contributions, moral character, and other distinguishing traits against contemporaries like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin but also figures like Machiavelli and Frederick the Great, Moses contends that Jefferson fell short of the greatness of others. Yet amid his criticism of Jefferson, Moses paints him as a cunning strategist, an impressive intellectual, and a consummate pragmatist who continually reformulated his ideas in a universe that he accurately recognized to be unstable, capricious, and treacherous.

Author: Wilson Jeremiah Moses
ISBN-10: 1108470963
ISBN-13: 9781108470964
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 03/28/2019
Pages: 518
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.90lbs
Size: 9.20h x 9.50w x 1.30d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2019