Synopses & Reviews
With a novelist's skill and a scholar's meticulous detail, Fawn M. Brodie portrays Thomas Jefferson as he wrestled with the great issues of his time: revolution, religion, power, race, and love--ambivalences that exerted a subtle but powerful influence on his political ideas and his presidency. Far advanced for its time, Brodie's biography was the first to set forth a convincing case that Thomas Jefferson was the father of children by his slave Sally Hemings. In a new introduction, Annette Gordon-Reed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of , explores the impact of Brodie's groundbreaking book and explains why it is still such a powerful account of one of our greatest and most elusive presidents.
Review
Brilliant, provocative. . . . A biography no one interested in the man or his times should miss. --Marjorie Perloff, author of
Review
A powerful and touching portrait. . . . Brodie has humanized Jefferson without in the least diminishing him. --Larry McMurtry
Synopsis
An ambitious, perceptive portrayal of a complex man, this best-selling biography broke new ground in its exploration of Jefferson's inner life.
Synopsis
Here for the first time we meet Jefferson as a man of feeling and passion. With a novelist's skill and meticulous scholarship, Fawn M. Brodie shows Jefferson as he wrestled with issues of revolution, religion, power, race, and love-ambivalences that exerted a subtle but powerful influence on his political writing and his decision making. The portrait that results adds a whole new depth to those of the past.
Synopsis
A seminal biography of Thomas Jefferson and a fascinating exploration of his relationship with Sally Hemings.
About the Author
Fawn M. Brodie was professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of several noted biographies, including Thomas Jefferson and The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard BurtonAnnette Gordon-Reed is a professor of law at New York Law School and a professor of history at Rutgers University. She is the author of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. She lives in New York City.