Author: Derek Baxter
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1728225396
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425
Get Book Here
Book Description
A debut that combines historical nonfiction with travel books, for fans of Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz, In Pursuit of Jefferson is the story of an American on a journey through Europe, following the epic trail of Thomas Jefferson. A controversial founding father. A man ready for a change. And a completely unique trip through Europe. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson was a broken man. Reeling from the loss of his wife and stung from a political scandal during the Revolutionary war, he needed to remake himself. To do that, he traveled. Wandering through Europe, Jefferson saw and learned as much as he could, ultimately bringing his knowledge home to a young America. There, he would rise to power and shape a nation. More than two hundred years later, Derek Baxter, a devotee of American history, stumbles on an obscure travel guide written by Jefferson—Hints for Americans Traveling Through Europe—as he's going through his own personal crisis. Who better to offer advice than a founding father himself? Using Hints as his roadmap, Baxter follows Jefferson through six countries and countless lessons. But what Baxter learns isn't always what Jefferson had in mind, and as he comes to understand Jefferson better, he doesn't always like what he finds. In Pursuit of Jefferson is at once the story of a life-changing trip through Europe, an unflinching look at a founding father, and a moving personal journey. With rich historical detail, a sense of humor, and boundless heart, Baxter explores how we can be better moving forward only by first looking back.
Author: Noble E. Cunningham, Jr.
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345353803
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Get Book Here
Book Description
"A major contribution." Washington Post The authoritative single-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the most significant figure in American history. He was a complex and compelling man: a fervent advocate of democracy who enjoyed the life of a southern aristocrat and owned slaves, a revolutionary who became president, a believer in states' rights who did much to further the power of the federal government. Drawing on the recent explosion of Jeffersonian scholarship and fresh readings of original sources, IN PURSUIT OF REASON is a monument to Jefferson that will endure for generations.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0812974328
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Get Book Here
Book Description
Were Thomas Jefferson alive to read this book, he would recognize every sentence, every elegant turn of phrase, every lofty, beautifully expressed idea. Indeed, every word in the book is his. In an astonishing feat of editing, Eric S. Petersen has culled the entirety of Thomas Jefferson’s published works to fashion thirty-four original essays on themes ranging from patriotism and liberty to hope, humility, and gratitude. The result is a lucid, inspiring distillation of the wisdom of one of America’s greatest political thinkers. From his personal motto—“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God”—to his resounding discourse on “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson defined the essential truth of the American spirit. In the essays that Petersen has crafted from letters, speeches, and public documents, Jefferson’s unique moral philosophy and vision shine through. Among the hundreds of magnificent sentences gathered in this volume, here are Jefferson’s pronouncements on Gratitude: “I have but one system of ethics for men and for nations— to be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements and under all circumstances, to be open and generous.” Religion: “A concern purely between our God and our consciences.” America’s national character: “It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate; to surmount every difficulty with resolution and contrivance.” Public debt: “We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves.” War: “I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.” In stately measured cadences, these thirty-four essays provide timeless guidance on leading a spiritually fulfilling life. Light and Liberty is a triumphant work of supreme eloquence, as uplifting today as when Jefferson first set these immortal sentences on paper.
Author: T. Jefferson Parker
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 1401397697
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Get Book Here
Book Description
From the Edgar Award-winning author of Silent Joe, a new hard-hitting thriller of murder, vengeance, and secret passions that will keep readers spellbound. Homicide cop Tom McMichael is on the rotation when an 84-year-old city patriarch named Pete Braga is found bludgeoned to death. Not good news, especially since the Irish McMichaels and the Portuguese Bragas share a violent family history dating back three generations. Years ago Braga shot McMichael's grandfather in a dispute over a paycheck; soon thereafter Braga's son was severely beaten behind a waterfront bar--legend has it that it was an act of revenge by McMichael's father. McMichael must put aside the old family blood feud, and find the truth about Pete Braga's death. Braga's beautiful nurse is a suspect--she says she stepped out for some firewood, but key evidence suggests otherwise. The investigation soon expands to include Braga's business, his family, the Catholic diocese, a multi-million dollar Indian casino, a prostitute, a cop, and, of course, the McMichael family. Cold Pursuit is the novel that T. Jefferson Parker fans have been waiting for.
Author: Garry Wills
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385542836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440
Get Book Here
Book Description
From one of America's foremost historians, Inventing America compares Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence with the final, accepted version, thereby challenging many long-cherished assumptions about both the man and the document. Although Jefferson has long been idealized as a champion of individual rights, Wills argues that in fact his vision was one in which interdependence, not self-interest, lay at the foundation of society. "No one has offered so drastic a revision or so close or convincing an analysis as Wills has . . . The results are little short of astonishing" —(Edmund S. Morgan, New York Review of Books)
Author: Paul Finkelman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317520254
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Get Book Here
Book Description
In Slavery and the Founders, Paul Finkelman addresses a central issue of the American founding: how the first generation of leaders of the United States dealt with the profoundly important question of human bondage. The book explores the tension between the professed idea of America as stated in the Declaration of Independence, and the reality of the early American republic, reminding us of the profound and disturbing ways that slavery affected the U.S. Constitution and early American politics. It also offers the most important and detailed short critique of Thomas Jefferson's relationship to slavery available, while at the same time contrasting his relationship to slavery with that of other founders. This third edition of Slavery and the Founders incorporates a new chapter on the regulation and eventual (1808) banning of the African slave trade.
Author: Joseph Wheelan
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
ISBN: 9780786714377
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Get Book Here
Book Description
The author explores the rivalry between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr from the perspective of Jefferson's obsession with his nemesis, delving deeply into court records to show how the former president used the judiciary to torment his foe.
Author: Mike Thorsen
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595195806
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Get Book Here
Book Description
"Thomas Jefferson Still Survives!" were, 2nd President of the United States, John Adams' final words. In point of fact, his friend, Thomas Jefferson, had died earlier that same day, on July 4th 1826. However, Adams' comment can be taken another way, in that Thomas Jefferson's work and wisdom lives on in the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and the University of Virginia, as well as in many other areas such as the real estate a great many Americans live on, previously known as the Louisiana Purchase. Certainly, it is hard to find another American who has contributed more to the success of the United States of America than Thomas Jefferson. His wisdom helped lead a fledgling nation into greatness and, surely, can help us continue that greatness and add to it today. After reading Thomas Jefferson's collected wisdom in this book you will truly believe that "Thomas Jefferson Still Survives!"
Author: Jon Meacham
Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0385387512
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Get Book Here
Book Description
In this special illustrated edition of the #1 New York Times bestselling Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham, young readers will learn about the life and political philosophy of one of our Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States. He was one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence. But he was also a lawyer and an ambassador, an inventor and a scientist. He had a wide range of interests and hobbies, but his consuming interest was the survival and success of the United States. This book contains a note from Meacham and over 100 archival illustrations, as well as sections throughout the text about subjects such as the Boston Tea Party, the Library of Congress, and Napoléon Bonaparte. Additional materials include a time line; a family tree; a Who’s Who in Jefferson’s world; sections on Jefferson’s original writings and correspondence, “inventions,” interests, places in Jefferson’s world, finding Jefferson in the United States today, additional reading, organizations, and websites; notes; a bibliography; and an index. This adaptation, ideal for those interested in American presidents, biographies, and the founding of the American republic, is an excellent example of informational writing and reflects Meacham’s extensive research using primary source material.
Author: Henry Wiencek
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466827785
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Get Book Here
Book Description
Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Master of the Mountain, Henry Wiencek's eloquent, persuasive book—based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson's papers—opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson's world. We must, Wiencek suggests, follow the money. So far, historians have offered only easy irony or paradox to explain this extraordinary Founding Father who was an emancipationist in his youth and then recoiled from his own inspiring rhetoric and equivocated about slavery; who enjoyed his renown as a revolutionary leader yet kept some of his own children as slaves. But Wiencek's Jefferson is a man of business and public affairs who makes a success of his debt-ridden plantation thanks to what he calls the "silent profits" gained from his slaves—and thanks to a skewed moral universe that he and thousands of others readily inhabited. We see Jefferson taking out a slave-equity line of credit with a Dutch bank to finance the building of Monticello and deftly creating smoke screens when visitors are dismayed by his apparent endorsement of a system they thought he'd vowed to overturn. It is not a pretty story. Slave boys are whipped to make them work in the nail factory at Monticello that pays Jefferson's grocery bills. Parents are divided from children—in his ledgers they are recast as money—while he composes theories that obscure the dynamics of what some of his friends call "a vile commerce." Many people of Jefferson's time saw a catastrophe coming and tried to stop it, but not Jefferson. The pursuit of happiness had been badly distorted, and an oligarchy was getting very rich. Is this the quintessential American story?
