Peter S. Onuf

Hailed by critics and embraced by readers, Most Blessed of the Patriarchs is one of the richest and most insightful accounts of Thomas Jefferson in a generation. Following her Pulitzer Prize–winning The Hemingses of Monticello, Annette Gordon-Reed has teamed with Peter S. Onuf to present a provocative and absorbing character study, "a fresh and layered analysis" (New York Times Book...

Thomas Jefferson has been reinvented more than perhaps any American president in history. In the nineteenth century, slavery's defenders invoked Jefferson's defence of states' rights, while abolitionists drew on his antislavery writings to support their cause. After the Civil War, Jefferson's reputation declined because of his association with secession and disunion, but in the twentieth century, his image soared as...