Thomas Jefferson designed his own tombstone,
describing himself simply as ''Author of the Declaration
of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for
Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of
Virginia.'' It is in this simple epitaph that R.B.
Bernstein finds the key to this enigmatic Founder--not
as a great political figure, but as leader of ''a
revolution of ideas that would make the world over
again.'' In Thomas Jefferson, Bernstein offers the
definitive short biography of this revered American--the
first concise life in six decades. Bernstein deftly
synthesizes the massive scholarship on his subject into
a swift, insightful, evenhanded account. Here are all of
Jefferson's triumphs, contradictions, and failings, from
his luxurious (and debt-burdened) life as a Virginia
gentleman to his passionate belief in democracy, from
his tortured defense of slavery to his relationship with
Sally Hemings.Jefferson was indeed multifaceted--an
architect, inventor, writer, diplomat, propagandist,
planter, party leader--and Bernstein explores all these
roles even as he illuminates Jefferson's central place
in the American enlightenment, that ''revolution of
ideas'' that did so much to create the nation we know
today. Together with the less well-remembered points in
Jefferson's thinking--the nature of the Union, his
vision of who was entitled to citizenship, his dread of
debt (both personal and national)--they form the heart
of this lively biography. In this marvel of compression
and comprehension, we see Jefferson more clearly than in
the massive studies of earlier generations. More
important, we see, in Jefferson's visionary ideas, the
birth of the nation's grand sense of purpose. |
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