Thomas Jefferson

Wilson Jeremiah Moses is Professor Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and the author of six books: The Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 1850–1925 (1978); Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary Manipulations of a Religious Myth (1982); Alexander Crummell: A Study in Civilization and Discontent (1989); The Wings of Ethiopia: Studies in African-American Life and Letters (1990); Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History (Cambridge, 1998); and Creative Conflict in African American Thought (Cambridge, 2004).

• 1. Introduction; 2. Lincoln and historiography; 3. Let our workshops remain at Monticello; 4. Life, liberty, property, and peace; 5. What is genius? 'Openness, brilliance, and leadership'; 6. A Renaissance man in the age of the Enlightenment; 7. Baconism and natural science; 8. Anthropology and ethnic cleansing: white 'rubbish' blacks, and Indians; 9. Education, religion, and social control; 10. Women and the Count of Monticello; 11. Debt, deference and consumption; 12. Defining the presidency.

'Wilson Jeremiah Moses has assembled a daring intellectual history of Thomas Jefferson that is as bold in its arguments as it is sweeping in its scope. The study's treatment of historical scholarship and literary sources goes beyond detailing the ideas of Jefferson, to guide the reader through the creation, development, and perpetuation of Jeffersonian beliefs. Within this narrative of racism, philosophy, and polemics, Thomas Jefferson: A Modern Prometheus employs gripping prose to sustain a cohesive anthology of the most far-reaching critiques of Jefferson's intellectual reasoning.' Ronald Angelo Johnson, author of Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance