Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue / Edition 1

by Merrill D. Peterson

Overview

Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue documents the public lives and personal friendship of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, from their first meeting as delegates to the Second Continental Congress to their deaths on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This study takes a look at some of the famous correspondence between the two statesmen who devoted their lives to a new chapter of freedom and self-government.

Peterson draws an extended parallel between the backgrounds, experiences, personalities, and intellectual styles of Adams and Jefferson and examines their work in the achievement of independence and the design of new governments for Massachusetts and Virginia. While Adams and Jefferson had much in common, their ideas of human nature, history, society, and government included many differences that would reveal themselves in the course of time. Merrill D. Peterson looks at Adams and Jefferson’s relationship across their lives, including their disputes in the midst of the coming French Revolution, their excitement for the establishment of a new American government under the Constitution, their contest for the presidency in 1796, and their eventual reconciliation.

The Georgia Open History Library has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this collection, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195023558
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/09/1978
Series:	Galaxy Book; 533
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	7.98(w) x 5.30(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

MERRILL D. PETERSON (1921–2009) was Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia. His books include The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, which won the Bancroft Prize, and Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography.

ANDREW BURSTEIN is the Charles Phelps Manship Professor at Louisiana State University. He is the author or coauthor of twelve books, including The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality, Madison and Jefferson, and Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello.

MERRILL D. PETERSON (1921–2009) was Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia. His books include The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, which won the Bancroft Prize, and Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography.

ANDREW BURSTEIN is the Charles Phelps Manship Professor at Louisiana State University. He is the author or coauthor of twelve books, including The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality, Madison and Jefferson, and Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello.

Editorial Reviews

"A useful tool, for students enrolled in an intro course, to go one step deepr into U.S. history or one aspect of it."—Ralph Hymes, National Technical Institute for the Deaf

"The course of that more than fifty-year relationship [between Adams and Jefferson] and its healing close are compactly, eloquently traced....This fine little book greatly illuminates the meaning of our political heritage."—Edward Fuller, The Wall Street Journal

"Peterson's beautifully written analysis and interpretation of the familiar and remarkable founders is fresh and useful, with some new insights even for the historian who has read these men and their correspondence many times."—Richard Beale Davis, Key Reporter

From the Publisher