Thomas Jefferson has inspired countless books that explore his
brilliant career, his political philosophy, and his extraordinary
accomplishments as a gifted leader. Endlessly inquisitive, he was
both a tireless writer and one of the most cosmopolitan men of his
age. Yet this collection of Jefferson's reflections on his
wide-ranging travels reveals a new side of the man.
Eloquent and powerful, Thomas Jefferson's letters and travel
diaries from his years abroad as the U.S. minister to France spill
onto the pages of this volume in wonderful detail, covering the
full range of his interests and passions. Editor Anthony Brandt has
sifted through the myriad of writings from this rich period of
Jefferson's career to present not only the politician and diplomat
but Thomas Jefferson the lover, the father, the farmer, the
architect, the man about town, the scientist, the visionary.
Jefferson emerges at the end a fully dimensional man, with all his
virtues, his flaws, and his extraordinary brilliance fleshed out,
standing vividly before us. Thomas Jefferson formulated many of
America's highest ideals. Here we see the man himself, and glimpse
the world through his eyes.