Jeffersonian Legacies

On the occasion of Thomas Jefferson's 250th birthday, a number of today's leading historicans take a fresh look at our third president, architect of democracy for his time and still for ours. Jeffersonian Legacies reconstructs the worlds Thomas Jefferson created for himself and envisioned for his countrymen.

In her introductory essay, Joyce Appleby addresses the complexity of Jefferson's legacy, and the innovated essys that follow explore dimensions and implications of this complexity. The authors consider Jefferson's career as a slave owner, his ambigious and controversial testimony on the institution of slavery, and his significance for the civil rights movement and contemporary race relations.

New perspectives on his family life, religious beliefs, and political philosophy provide a fresh framework for thinking about Jefferson. In an elegant and incisive conclusion Merrill D. Peterson, the preeminent Jefferson scholar in the world today, reflects on this challenging new scholarship.

Jeffersonian Legacies provides the next generation of students, scholars, and citizens with a better understanding not only of Jefferson in his own world but also of his influence in the shaping of ours.