The Jefferson Image in the American Mind

Front Cover
University of Virginia Press, 1998 - Biography & Autobiography - 548 pages

Since its publication in 1960, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind has become a classic of historical scholarship. In it Merrill D. Peterson charts Thomas Jefferson's influence upon American thought and imagination since his death in 1826. Peterson's focus is "not primarily with the truth or falsity of the image either as a whole or in its parts, but rather with its illuminations of the evolving culture and its shaping power. It is posterity's configuration of Jefferson. Even more, however, it is a sensitive reflector, through several generations, of America's troubled search of the image of itself."

In a new Introduction Peterson discusses the publication of his book and remarks in the directions of new scholarship. He also draws attention to the continuing interest in Jefferson as shown by recent historical fiction, motion pictures and documentaries, by the remaning of the Libarary of Congress main building and the National Gallery of Art's exhibition, The Eye of Thomas Jefferson, by President William Jefferson Clinton's preinagural pilgrimage to Monticello, and by the Sotheby's auction of a Jefferson letter that commanded the highest auction price ever paid for such a manuscript.

 

Contents

THE APOTHEOSIS
3
One RESURRECTION
17
Two DEMOCRACY 1
67
Three HISTORY I
112
Four UNION
162
Who Was Thomas Jefferson?
231
Touch the Bones of Jefferson
250
Republic or Empire
266
DEMOCRACY II
330
Claude Bowers and the New Jefferson
347
Jefferson and the New Deal
355
Eight CULTURE
377
THE LENGTHENING SHADOW
443
Guide to Sources
459
Index
523
Copyright

Six HISTORY II
277

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About the author (1998)

Merrill D. Peterson is Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia. His many publications include Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue; Lincoln in American Memory; The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun; Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography; and Visitors to Monticello [Virginia].