Thomas Jefferson’s Enlightenment - Background Notes

Thomas Jefferson’s Enlightenment - Background Notes is a self-contained collection of seventeen essays. Author James Thompson envisioned it originally as a supplement for his earlier book, Thomas Jefferson’s Enlightenment - Paris 1785. Readers will find in his background notes a feast of little known facts, seldom-noted events, and forgotten relationships. As they peer into historical nooks and crannies that only the author seems to know about, they will develop a new insight into the circumspect political loner who drafted the Declaration of Independence alone in his Philadelphia rooms. They will see how enlightenment transformed Thomas Jefferson into the engaged social progressive who later waged and won the Second American Revolution. In this collection of notes, the author discusses the factors that shaped the man who went to France, the people he encountered there, the city he came to know, the circles he entered, the ideas they discussed, and other topics relating to this fascinating period in Jefferson’s life. By examining the motives and objectives that guided him through his day-to-day affairs, Mr. Thompson brings renewed clarity to an image that has somehow become murky.