Understanding Thomas Jefferson

(Paperback)

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Recent biographies of Thomas Jefferson have stressed the sphinxlike puzzles of his characterfamous champion of freedom yet lifelong slaveholder, foe of miscegenation yet secret lover of a beautiful slave for 30 years, aristocrat yet fervent advocate of government by the people. E. M. Halliday's absorbing and lucid portrait recognizes these and other puzzles about this great founder, but shows us how understandable they can be in light of his personal and social circumstances.

Halliday takes readers deep into Jefferson's private lifeexploring his childhood, his literary taste, and his unconventional religious thinking and moral philosophy. Here, too, are his adamant opinions on women, the evolution of his ideas on democracy and freedom of expression, and fresh insights into his relationship with Sally Hemings.

Reviews

""Understanding Thomas Jefferson is exactly what the title says. In a lifetime of reading about this great man, I've never learned so much as from E. M. Halliday. He writes almost as well as his subject did. Halliday's extraordinary insight and sensitivity, his perspective as a citizen of our time, his judicious approach, and his original conclusions left me deeply impressed. His passages on Jefferson's private life, especially the extended exploration of his sexual life and racial views, are so exemplary that on finishing the book I felt, for the first time, that I had actually met the man."-- Stephen E. Ambrose"In this terrific book, E. M. Halliday gives a wonderfully provocative and original portrait of Thomas Jefferson. Written in a clear and convincing style with penetrating insights into Jefferson's mind, this book will, I believe, be regarded as a significant scholarly achievement. It is also a fascinating story that will delight lovers of history and the general reader."-- Doris Kearns Goodwin"An eloquent addition to Jefferson scholarship. With great wit and keen intelligence, Halliday lays waste the fashionable portrait of the infinitely mysterious Jefferson. In Halliday's hands, Jefferson comes alive as a recognizable, flesh-and-blood human being."-- Annette Gordon-Reed"Halliday was right about the Jefferson-Hemings relationship more than a quarter of a century before DNA evidence confirmed the truth of it. Now, in "Understanding Thomas Jefferson, he offers his own fresh take on what that liaison--and nearly two hundred years of secrecy about it--tell us about Jefferson and the country he helped create."--Geoffrey C. WardIn crisp, energetic, and occasionally ribald language,Halliday banishes Jefferson the sphinx and gives us, instead, Jefferson the man.--"The New YorkerBrilliantly delving into the books Jefferson read, the paintings he liked and the women he loved, Halliday has written a fascinating volume on our most human Founding Father-- NewsweekUNDERSTANDING THOMAS JEFFERSON is shrewd, engrossing, respectful but clear-eyed, and deeply knowledgeable.-- "American Heritage"

Author Bio

A longtime senior editor of American Heritage, E. M. HALLIDAY is the author of a memoir of the poet John Berryman and an account of the Allied invasion of Soviet Russia in 1918-19, as well as a number of articles for The New Yorker. He lives in New York City.