Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus

524 Pages·2019·4.722 MB·English

by  Wilson Jeremiah Moses

ThomasJefferson
In Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus, Wilson Jeremiah Moses
providesacriticalassessmentofThomasJeffersonandtheJeffersonian
influence.ScholarsofAmericanhistoryhavelongdebatedthelegacyof
ThomasJefferson.However,Mosesdeviatesfromotherinterpretations
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
andFredericktheGreat,MosescontendsthatJeffersonfellshortofthe
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.
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
(1998);andCreativeConflictinAfricanAmericanThought(2004).

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“Thoughshaltnotcovetthyneighbor’swife,”e.g.MariaCosway.
Thomas Jefferson
A Modern Prometheus
WILSON JEREMIAH MOSES
PennsylvaniaStateUniversity
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doi:10.1017/9781108557344
©WilsonJeremiahMoses2019
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Firstpublished2019
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AcatalogrecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
names:Moses,WilsonJeremiah,1942–author.
title:ThomasJefferson,amodernPrometheus/WilsonJeremiahMoses,
PennsylvaniaStateUniversity.
description:Cambridge;NewYork,NY:CambridgeUniversityPress,[2019]|
Series:CambridgestudiesontheAmericanSouth|Includesindex.
identifiers:lccn2018043272|isbn9781108470964
subjects:lcsh:Jefferson,Thomas,1743–1826–Knowledgeandlearning.|Jefferson,
Thomas,1743–1826–Influence.|UnitedStates–Intellectuallife–18thcentury.|
UnitedStates–Intellectuallife–19thcentury.
classification:lcce332.2.m672910|ddc973.4/6092[B]–dc23
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InMemoriam,Miriam,1944–2017