Thomas Jefferson: A Biographical Companion

Brown, David S.

ISBN 10: 0874369495 ISBN 13: 9780874369496

Publisher: ABC-CLIO, 1998

Synopsis

Thomas Jefferson advocated a society based on talent and virtue. His belief in the inherent goodness of humankind coupled with his faith in science made him the consummate gentleman-statesman. There was also an ethnocentric side to Jefferson. His agrarian bias led him to combat northern interests that encouraged the expansion of industry, and his legacy lends itself to continual reinterpretation.

About this title

About the Author:

David S. Brown, Ph.D., is assistant professor of history at Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA, specializing in the history of the early republic.

From Booklist:

Most of us venerate Thomas Jefferson for his political leadership and for his role in formulating early American thought, but the wealth of information about him is contradictory and confusing at times. David Brown, a professor of history whose specialty is the period so heavily influenced by Jefferson, has compiled this guide to help readers understand the times in which Jefferson lived and worked and reconcile the images of the enlightened sophisticate and the parochial slaveholder.

Arranged alphabetically, the nearly 200 entries present overviews of topics (Anglophobia, impressment, sectionalism), events (elections, the publication of the Mazzei Letter, Shays' Rebellion), and people (the Adams Family, Maria Cosway, John Locke) that affected Thomas Jefferson and vice versa. Although these brief articles probably do not offer the Jefferson scholar new information, the reader less familiar with the subject can learn a great deal in a short time. Simply scanning the illustrations, for example, shows Jefferson's pragmatic "autocopier," his design for a macaroni machine, and an ad he placed after a slave named Sandy ran away with his shoemaker tools and a white horse. Reading the entries on James Callender (a pamphleteer who first "broke" the story of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemmings), the Tertium Quid (a divisive faction of the Republican Party), and the Yazoo Lands (a fraudulent land deal) suggests that politics then was no nobler than today.

In addition to the brief articles, there are selected primary sources that enhance the understanding of this remarkable man and his times. Included are Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence (with the parts stricken by Congress in italics), letters to friends and family showing many of his interests and concerns, and his first inaugural address. A six-page chronology includes personal and political events, and it, as well as the index and the cross-references, helps direct the reader to relevant articles. The bibliography is extensive, but without annotations; it is probably overwhelming to the nonspecialist audience alluded to in the preface.

Its attractive format and easy readability will make this volume useful to anyone who wants to know more about Thomas Jefferson and the republican citizenry he endorsed. Although it is arranged like a reference book, it is one that many will want to peruse at leisure, so some libraries might want circulating copies, too. Recommended for high-school, public, and academic libraries, this is the second title in the publisher's Biographical Companions series. The first was published last year and dealt with Benjamin Franklin ($45, 0-87436-931-2).

About this edition

• Publisher: ABC-CLIO
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0874369495
• ISBN 13: 9780874369496
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 266