Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus

In Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus, Wilson Jeremiah Moses provides a critical assessment of Thomas Jefferson and the Jeffersonian influence. Scholars of American history have long debated the legacy of Thomas Jefferson. However, Moses deviates from other interpretations by positioning himself within an older, 'Federalist' historiographic tradition, offering vigorous and insightful commentary on Jefferson, the man and the myth. Moses specifically focuses on Jefferson's complexities and contradictions. Measuring Jefferson's political accomplishments, intellectual contributions, moral character, and other distinguishing traits against contemporaries like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin but also figures like Machiavelli and Frederick the Great, Moses contends that Jefferson fell short of the greatness of others. Yet amid his criticism of Jefferson, Moses paints him as a cunning strategist, an impressive intellectual, and a consummate pragmatist who continually reformulated his ideas in a universe that he accurately recognized to be unstable, capricious, and treacherous.

Author: Wilson Jeremiah Moses
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 05/16/2019
Pages: 518
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.90lbs
Size: 9.20h x 9.50w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9781108470964

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2019

About the Author
Moses, Wilson Jeremiah: - Wilson Jeremiah Moses is Professor Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and the author of six books: The Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 1850-1925 (1978); Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary Manipulations of a Religious Myth (1982); Alexander Crummell: A Study in Civilization and Discontent (1989); The Wings of Ethiopia: Studies in African-American Life and Letters (1990); Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History (Cambridge, 1998); and Creative Conflict in African American Thought (Cambridge, 2004).