American Sphinx

Thomas Jefferson may be the most important American president; he is certainly the most elusive. He has, at different times, been claimed by Southern secessionists and Northern abolitionists, New Deal liberals and neo-conservatives. Now the historian Joseph J. Ellis restores our most enigmatic national icon to human dimensions, with insight, sympathy, and superb style. Following his subject from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to his retirement in Monticello, Ellis unravels the contradictions of the Jeffersonian character.