The inner Jefferson

Andrew Burstein's The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist at last demystifies the Jefferson ofAmerican legend and recovers the eighteenth-century man of sentiment Thomas Jefferson actually was. Burstein confronts widespread misunderstandings about Jefferson's romantic life and provides insight into the contradictions that still surround our third president. He shows Jefferson to have been a man of substance and character, yet possessed of a mean streak, alternately strong and frail, convivial and reclusive, ordinary and extraordinary.

Burstein contends that the key to understanding Jefferson's consciousness lies in interpreting the passion expressed in intimate correspondence. Examining seven decades of letters and private accounts, Burstein shows us how Jefferson responded to what he read and how he used particular words and metaphors to express his hopes as well as anxieties and personal trials. The Jefferson revealed is not static; his mind develops over several decades. He teeters back and forth, seeming at the same time to desire opposing values: monastic contemplation, the joys of family and friends, and decisive public commitment. He extolls the humanity of African Americans but pronounces them largely incapable of rational thought. He examines life, nurtures an idealized version of how it could be, and suffers from the knowledge that he may never break through the discord that persists among men. Heralded as a great humanist, he is also an embittered partisan politician who holds himself blameless in all things.

The Inner Jefferson removes our modern preconceptions and re-creates the mental and moral world of the eighteenth century. Burstein discovers how in the wake of the American Revolution this retiring Virginian could become to some a popular idol while appearing to others a cold and calculating subversive.

From the dust jacket.