BIOGRAPHIES

Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1987, 414 p.

A comprehensive biography assessing Jefferson's life from his formative years to his final legacy.

Ellis, Joseph J. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997, 365 p.

Examines some of the contradictions in Jefferson's life and character, including his status as an aristocratic slaveowner at the same time he was drafting his famous statement on human rights and equality.

Lehmann, Karl. Thomas Jefferson, American Humanist. New York: Macmillan, 1947, 273 p.

Discusses Jefferson as one of the greatest humanists of all time and as the most universal human being among his contemporaries, both American and European.

CRITICISM

Cohen, I. Bernard. “Science and the Political Thought of Thomas Jefferson: The Declaration of Independence.” Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison, pp. 61-134. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995.

Discusses Jefferson's understanding of natural history and the laws of nature and how that understanding influenced his writing of the Declaration of Independence.

Jenkins, Hugh. “Jefferson (Re)Reading Milton.” Milton Quarterly 32, No. 1 (March 1998): 32-38.

Traces the changes in the way Milton's writings influenced Jefferson first as a young man and later as a mature statesman.

Manning, Susan. “Naming of Parts: or, The Comforts of Classification: Thomas Jefferson's Construction of America as Fact and Myth.” Journal of American Studies 30, No. 3 (Dec. 1996): 345-65.

Suggests that Notes on the State of Virginia deals with information as unconnected lists of facts that present a serious challenge to the reader.

O'Brien, Conor Cruise. “A Thematic Overview: Liberty, Slavery, and the Cult of the French Revolution.” The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800, pp. 254-300. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Explores the way Jeffersonian scholarship has changed since the 1960s and 70s to deal with the contradictions inherent in Jefferson's anti-slavery rhetoric and his status as a slaveholder.

Read, James H. “Thomas Jefferson, Liberty, and the States.” Power versus Liberty: Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, and Jefferson, pp. 119-56. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 2000.

Discusses Jefferson's opposition to a strong federal government and his support of states' rights as the best safeguard against encroachments on individual liberty.

Ritz, Wilfred J. “From the Here of Jefferson's Handwritten Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence to the There of the Printed Dunlap Broadside.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 116, No. 4 (Oct. 1992): 499-512.

Traces the process by which the Continental Congress produced the Declaration of Independence from Jefferson's rough draft.

Saillant, John. “The American Enlightenment in Africa: Jefferson's Colonizationism and Black Virginians' Migration to Liberia, 1776-1840.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 31, No. 3 (Spring 1998): 261-82.

An attempt to reconcile contradictions between Jefferson as both private man and public man, as a man of science, and as a slaveholder.

Sanford, Charles B. “The Religious Beliefs of Thomas Jefferson.” Religion and Political Culture in Jefferson's Virginia, edited by Garrett Ward Sheldon and Daniel L. Dreisbach, pp. 61-91. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

Discusses Jefferson's personal religious beliefs and his reputation among his contemporaries as an atheist and a deist.

Wilson, Douglas L. “Thomas Jefferson's Library and the French Connection.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 26, No. 4 (Summer 1993): 669-85.

Claims that Jefferson's extensive collection of French books were influential in his revolutionary writings.

———. “Jefferson and Literacy.” Thomas Jefferson and the Education of a Citizen. edited by James Gilreath, pp. 79-99. Washington: Library of Congress, 1999.

Discusses Jefferson's ideas about literacy and his faith in the sound judgment of ordinary citizens.

Yarbrough, Jean M. “The Declaration and the American Character.” American Virtues: Thomas Jefferson on the Character of a Free People, pp. 1-26. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.

Considers the current preoccupation with rights in America compared to Jefferson's understanding of inalienable rights.

Zall, Paul M., editor. “Thomas Jefferson.” The Wit and Wisdom of the Founding Fathers: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, pp. 123-62. Hopewell, N. J.: The Ecco Press, 1996.

Examines Jefferson's writing style, claiming that while it is concise, it is not humorless.

Additional coverage of Jefferson's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography, 1640–1865; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 31; and DISCovering Authors 3.0.