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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.
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.
500 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 4, 2017
In conjunction with the 250th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birthday, the University of Virginia published this collection of essays by historians. The title is somewhat misleading, because the subject matter is not strictly limited to Jefferson's legacies to future generations. Jefferson's legacies to the future were found in his public work as a scholar and political leader. Of these legacies, Jefferson himself listed the sponsorship of Virginia's statute on religious freedom, the writing of the Declaration of Independence, and the founding of the University of Virginia as the most important, though of course there were many, many others. Many of the essays in this book concern his private life, which was another subject.
Inevitably, many of the essays talk about his somewhat inconsistent attitudes towards slaves and slavery. (Thankfully, only one reads like an indictment of Jefferson; the rest are more scholarly and restrained.) On one hand, he was a fierce advocate of freedom who declared it self-evident that all men are created equal, sponsored a bill to eliminate slavery while serving as a young delegate to Virginia's House of Burgesses, and signed the statute outlawing the slave trade while serving as President in 1807. On the other hand, he was a man of his time, for whom slavery was an established fact and an economic necessity for the planters of the South.
I find this criticism to be anachronistic and unpersuasive. Virtually no one, anywhere in the world, questioned the institution of slavery until around 1780. It took a major sea-change in ideas for western civilization first to outlaw the slave trade, then to eliminate slavery itself and drag the rest of the world along with it. Jefferson was at the forefront of that change. The fact that he also inherited and owned slaves merely reflects the fact that he was a man of his time, as everyone is, and the society toward which his ideas pointed did not overnight spring into existence full-formed, like Athena springing forth from the head of Zeus. (As a man of his time, Jefferson also understood, enjoyed, and regularly used analogies to classical literature.) Jefferson's critics make the mistake of judging him as though he lived in the modern world, and do not seem to realize, or at least fail to acknowledge, that in criticizing Jefferson in this fashion they are standing on his shoulders and riding in the slipstream of his ideas.
On the whole, this book provides a useful discussion of Jefferson's life and legacies, but is not of the highest level because too much of the material focuses on relatively unimportant topics.
Inevitably, many of the essays talk about his somewhat inconsistent attitudes towards slaves and slavery. (Thankfully, only one reads like an indictment of Jefferson; the rest are more scholarly and restrained.) On one hand, he was a fierce advocate of freedom who declared it self-evident that all men are created equal, sponsored a bill to eliminate slavery while serving as a young delegate to Virginia's House of Burgesses, and signed the statute outlawing the slave trade while serving as President in 1807. On the other hand, he was a man of his time, for whom slavery was an established fact and an economic necessity for the planters of the South.
I find this criticism to be anachronistic and unpersuasive. Virtually no one, anywhere in the world, questioned the institution of slavery until around 1780. It took a major sea-change in ideas for western civilization first to outlaw the slave trade, then to eliminate slavery itself and drag the rest of the world along with it. Jefferson was at the forefront of that change. The fact that he also inherited and owned slaves merely reflects the fact that he was a man of his time, as everyone is, and the society toward which his ideas pointed did not overnight spring into existence full-formed, like Athena springing forth from the head of Zeus. (As a man of his time, Jefferson also understood, enjoyed, and regularly used analogies to classical literature.) Jefferson's critics make the mistake of judging him as though he lived in the modern world, and do not seem to realize, or at least fail to acknowledge, that in criticizing Jefferson in this fashion they are standing on his shoulders and riding in the slipstream of his ideas.
On the whole, this book provides a useful discussion of Jefferson's life and legacies, but is not of the highest level because too much of the material focuses on relatively unimportant topics.
October 27, 2010
This book was very interesting for the first half, and like most biographies and history books, the second half I was ready to put one to the skull. Let's start with the take off, the author tells the greatness of Jefferson and how well he treated his slaves. The slaves had a better lifestyle than regular whites yadayada yah. Then, author turns on you and says Jefferson is a racist prick. He had the most slaves at up to 250 and only released a handful with freedom when he passed on. I have noted Jefferson as the smartest prez, but Jefferson says Benjamin Franklin was smarter because he did not give his life to politics. Jefferson basically fucked off his family for his fame, his two daughters went on a girls gone wild bus cause daddy wasn't their. The last part of the book goes on about his mistress Sally the slave. He banged a slave and you got 200 pages to read about how they tried to publicize this act from the papers up to current T.V. Who gives a shit? They got busy. Took me three words, when it took Author 200 pages, what a fuquin geek.
March 30, 2018
It's so peculiar how politics transcends time every now and again. This book was a vibrant read into the mind of a genius.
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September 23, 2010Jeffersonian Legacies by Peter S. Onuf (1993)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews