The Paris Years Of Thomas Jefferson

An illustrated study brings to life the atmosphere and personalities of pre-revolutionary Paris, traces their influence on the American envoy, and recounts his participation in the life of the city and its intrigues at court. UP.

In 1784 Thomas Jefferson moved to the sophisticated and exhilarating city of Paris, where he spent the next five years as minister from the new United States of America. These were formative years for France, for the United States, and for Jefferson's cultural and intellectual development. This engaging book recreates in word and illustration the atmosphere and personalities of prerevolutionary Paris, and it reveals the profound impact they had on one of America's first transatlantic citizens.

This handsomely illustrated picture book provides a remarkable glimpse of the Paris Jefferson knew—Paris on the eve of the French Revolution. The houses, gardens, bookshops, and landmarks of the time are brought to life through commentary and drawings, paintings, and maps. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Following Thomas Jefferson from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to his retirement in Monticello, Joseph J. Ellis unravels the contradictions of the Jeffersonian character. He gives us the slaveholding libertarian who was capable of decrying mescegenation while maintaing an intimate relationship with his slave, Sally Hemmings; the enemy of government power who exercisdd it audaciously as president; the visionarty who remained curiously blind to the inconsistencies in his nature. American Sphinx is a marvel of scholarship, a delight to read, and an essential gloss on the Jeffersonian legacy.

A masterly treatment of the epic 3 day Gettysburg Campaign. Complete with detailed maps, Stars in their Courses brilliantly recreates this great battle of the Civil War.

Jefferson’s years in France as minister plenipotentiary were a time of large edification. He approached his ministry as a “looker on”: Jefferson, while in France, always kept a critical distance from events, so that he could measure and critically examine them from the perspective of a dispassionate natural philosopher. Being dispassionate, Jefferson was pulled into events only insofar as circumstances required him to do so. Yet his “adventures” from his critical distance (e.g., his trip to London to meet the king, his ventures in the salons of Paris, and his travels through Southern France, Northern Italy, the Rhineland, and the Netherlands) were many, and varied. He even, at times, lost his critical, looker-on perspective from distance as he allowed himself to become immersed in events, as in the case of his relationship with lovely Italian artist and musician Maria Cosway.... > This book is a portal into the mind of Thomas Jefferson, as looker-on, during his tenure in Paris. Why was Jefferson so eager to accept the ministry to Paris? What was his impression of the great city and its people while he stayed? What lessons, while in Paris, did he learn which he could transport to Virginia and his country? Those and other questions Holowchak aims to answer in this book.

Readers who know the last new Thomas Jefferson, the one who appeared in the mid-20th century, will not recognize the man portrayed in this colorful book. Not only is the image different, the man who became enlightened in France is also different. This is the real man. "Thomas Jefferson's Enlightenment: Paris - 1785" is a new kind of history. I call it a non-fiction narrative. It does not describe what Jefferson did in France. It takes the reader along as Jefferson does it. The reader comes to know the real man during eight divertissements in which French savant Pierre Cabanis shows the American Ambassador the city's most famous sites and buildings. In the course of these expeditions, Cabanis introduces his companion to the French Enlightenment.This knowledge is essential to Jefferson. The self-described "savage from the mountains of America" had gone went to France after the death of his wife to begin his life again. His plan was to become a new man in the form of a recent acquaintance, the marquis de Chastellux. To accomplish this transformation, Jefferson had not only to change his attire and his manners. He also had to learn the language of the French salons, which he intended to join.While accompanying Cabanis and Jefferson on their excursions through Paris in the summer of 1785, the reader sees a real person meeting real Frenchmen and learning to respond to them as a French sophisticate would do. With Cabanis' help, Jefferson grasped the French concept of Progress and came to see himself as its agent. This knowledge prepared him for the contest that lay ahead. Within a year of his return home, with the hepe of his Virginia neighbor, James Madison, he laid the foundations for a political party that would compete for power in America's first national campaign. During this ten-year process - Jefferson later referred to is as "the Second American Revolution" - the political loner who drafted the Declaration of Independence disappeared. Taking his place was an ambitious political partisan whose aim was to become the President of the United States of America.