Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

In examining the many-faceted character of Thomas Jefferson – farmer, inventor, natural historian, architect, brilliant lawyer and politician – Pulitzer-Prize-nominated historian, R. B. Bernstein brings him before us as a real, complex and passionate man. Few great figures in American history have been mired in such controversy, with succeeding generations arguing about the true convictions of the man who wrote that ‘all men are created equal’, yet lived a luxurious life as a slave-owning Virginian planter. For one so resolutely committed to the virtues of democracy by ‘the people’, what explanation could there be for Jefferson’s condemnation of interracial relationships in the face of his own liaison with his slave Sally Hemings?

Jefferson wrote thousands of letters to a vast circle of acquaintances, often airing ideas and thoughts in private, which he would later argue against in public. It is Bernstein’s great triumph to look behind Jefferson’s many assumed ‘roles’ to explore his central place in the American enlightenment as the ‘apostle of liberty’ and author of America’s most sacred national document – the Declaration of Independence. It is for these achievements that Jefferson wished to be remembered by posterity, not as a great political figure, but as a man of revolutionary ideas that would make the world a new and better place.

Today the United States of America is a global powerhouse, yet when it first secured independence, many doubted that this new nation would endure. The vision and dedication of America's first leaders proved them wrong.

This collection of America's founding fathers includes the extraordinary lives of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. These authoritative, modern biographies reveal individuals who were passionate in their convictions, dedicated to their ideals, and yet, for all their brilliance, often flawed human beings. Fascinating portraits, they evoke the troubled, tumultuous times in which they lived, when the spirit of revolution was in the air.