Jeffersonian America

Peter S. Onuf is the Thomas Jeffersonian Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. His books include Origins of the Federal Republic (1983), Statehood and Union (1987), and Jefferson's Empire (2000). Leonard J. Sadosky is a Ph.D. candidate in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. He was a dissertation fellow at the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, 2000-2001.

• Acknowledgments. Introduction.1. The Republican Revolution.2. Little Republics.3. Pursuits of Happiness.4. Federal Republic and Extended Union.Further Reading.Index.

Jeffersonian America represents political history at its very best. It is no mere catalog of elections and partisan struggles but a history that explains the underlying structure of politics and uses that explanation to illuminate the history of the period." Jan Lewis, Rutgers University at Newark."In this well crafted and knowledgeable book, Onuf and Sadosky offer us a splendid lens through which to view Jefferson and the early republic. We thereby gain a greater insight into the origins of American political culture." Paul A. Gilje, University of Oklahoma. "Onuf and Sadowski ... examine family structure and the structure of local government, political economy and race, and federalism and diplomacy, providing a deft analysis of Jefferson's conception of nationhood during the country's formative years." Choice "The book's ideological, synthetic and integrative approach emphasizes the themes of contingency and even anxiety in the life of the new nation, which the authors would contend was elided by previous generations of historiographical simplification and overspeculation. Indeed this volume significantly clarifies our understanding of the persistent orientation of the young United States towards the western frontier and the Atlantic world." Johnathan o'Neill, University of London